





COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



< 




t 




DENA 





. 

. 







“Look, Leta,” and Ardena lifted the bunch, “don't you think 
they’re just the color of her eyes? ” 


Page 48. 



DENA 


BY 

ELLA WATERBURY GARDNER 

ILLUSTRATED BY 

Elsie Drake 



BOSTON 

SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY 
PUBLISHERS 




Copyright, 1919 

By SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY 

(INCORPORATED) 

* 7 . 1 5 " 


AUG 13 !9i9 


©Cl. A 5 W 551 

„ * • • 


Ac | 

I 


TO 

MY MOTHER 


\ 















CONTENTS 


CHAPTER PAGE 

I Iowa Ardena Marsh i 

II Of Football Fame 12 

III Speaking Day 28 

IV The First of May 47 

V The Fourth of July 61 

VI In Honor of William Thaddeus . . 87 

VII Christmas Again 108 

VIII Housework and Reading 129 

IX Ardena a Nurse 146 

X Visiting Grandmother 16 1 

XI Leta Entertains 175 

XII A Welcome Stepmother 188 


































» 

* ' >r L* Ll 


DENA 















DENA 


CHAPTER I 

IOWA ARDENA MARSH 

Ardena leaned against the footboard of the old 
walnut bed and watched the stolid little woman ad- 
justing her shawl before the tilted looking glass. 

“ You’re getting it on crooked, grandmother.” 
Ardena straightened the shawl on the square shoul- 
ders that the fringed point of the shawl might fall in 
a straight line down the middle of the black alpaca 
skirt. 

“ Am I ? Well, I don’t know but that’s ’bout the 
way I’ve been doing most things lately. Seems 
like since the funeral I can’t get back into the old 
way.” Grandmother’s jerky tones sank, the last 
word ending in a sigh. Under the mass of red hair, 
Ardena’s face flushed and her mouth quivered, but 
she hastily lifted the black velvet bonnet and put it 
in the knotted hands outstretched to take it. 


2 


DENA 


“ Oh, you’re getting that on all crooked, too ! ” 
Ardena caught her breath and a light came into her 
dark eyes as the stiff little plume slanted ignomini- 
ously to the left over a tight knot of gray hair. 

After a more decided tilt of the paintless looking 
glass grandmother replaced the bonnet and tied it 
securely by the bow under the chin. 

“ I don’t see why your father has to hang his glass 
so high. He’s not so tall he needs to string it up to 
the ceiling. And a window shade rolled to the very 
top — and crooked at that ! ” Grandmother gave 
a little sniff of disgust and stretched for the offend- 
ing shade, cutting off, as she lowered the frayed and 
punctured green curtain, a share of the mellow 
brightness of the September sunshine. 

“ And then that bed,” grandmother continued to 
note as she turned about. “ I’ve been working to 
get that smooth the whole week I’ve been here. But 
it’s the springs — I’m certain of that, finally. As 
long’s your mother’s gone now, Ardena, I don’t 
know what you will come to ! ” Grandmother’s 
voice softened and she tugged for the handkerchief 
at her belt. “ Your father’ll never get ahead 
enough to buy new and he’ll never leave off reading 
long enough to mend the old. The printing busi- 
ness in a small town’s not a very paying business 


IOWA ARDENA MARSH 


3 


even when it’s got a hustling manager. And Wil- 
liam’s anything but a hustler. He doesn’t even 
charge enough for the work he does do. Went and 
did a real good job with the Anderson girl’s wed- 
ding announcements and then charged so little that 
stingy old Billy Anderson sent him a check for twice 
what he’d asked for.” Grandmother sniffed again 
in impatient disgust. Then, as she noted Ardena’s 
very long and very sober face, “ But he means well, 
William does. And he thinks a lot of you chil- 
dren.” 

“ I’m going to learn to do the managing,” re- 
sponded Ardena. “ I can help father.” 

“ You’re no more’n a child yet, Ardena. And 
going to school and keeping house and tending to 
the children — ,” she was looking again at Ardena. 
“ It doesn’t seem right your mother was taken. 
She was needed so and she — ” Her mouth 
twitched uncontrollably. 

Ardena, leaning against the foot of the old wal- 
nut bedstead, straightened to the full height of her 
fourteen years. But erect and tall Ardena was still 
girlish, for the shiny brown skirt, even with its 
various saggings, did not reach the shoetops and the 
mass of red hair had ascended only to the neck. 
“ But, grandmother, I can — yes, I can.” It was 


4 


DENA 


the seriousness of the dark eyes behind the fringe of 
fluffy hair that was persuasive. 

Grandmother, with jerky little steps, walked on 
towards the sitting room. “ We might as well sit 
down,” she said, as she seated herself in the clumsy 
wooden rocker. “ Your Uncle Logan may be an 
hour yet in coming. Saturday’s a bad time to get 
trading done. But I’ll be putting my gloves on any- 
way. It’s hard to get the horses to stand and he’ll 
want to be home seeing to the chores.” Extending 
her arms beyond the confines of the well-pinned 
shawl she unrolled the black cotton gloves wadded 
in a knot and Ardena, seated on the bumpy carpet 
lounge, watched her nervously pull them over her 
work-knotted hands. 

“ I don’t know, Ardena,” grandmother was losing 
button after button in the nervous grasp of her blunt 
fingers, “ as I ought to go off and leave you. A 
week hasn’t been as much as I thought it would be. 
I didn’t help you to get done what I wanted to. The 
house is pretty well cleaned and the washing and 
ironing’s done for next week, but I haven’t showed 
you how to do everything you ought to know. 
Somehow I can’t seem to think as well as I could be- 
fore your mother was taken sick — she — she had 
such good common sense on everything. I don’t 


IOWA ARDENA MARSH 


5 


know how you will manage, ’’she said thoughtfully, 
as she looked across the red wool stand-cover at 
Ardena, who sat in a hollow of the old lounge, her 
hands clasped about her knee, her face sobered in 
sympathy. 

But Ardena, pensive, brightened. “ Why, grand- 
mother, you know I had to help mother so much — 
it’s a year in November! Really, I almost man- 
aged things myself sometimes — when she was the 
worst. And father is good — he always tries to 
help — and Alonzo is large enough to do lots of 
things.” 

“ Then there’s the mortgage on my farm,” grand- 
mother continued, unheeding. “ I’ve worked my 
fingers to the bone to save that farm and now I 
don’t want to give in at the very last. Logan’s a 
good son-in-law and a first-rate manager but I feel 
safest to tend to things myself. Your grandfather 
run things when he was alive and he ’bout run them 
into the ground, too, and I said once I got the 
reins in my own hands I’d never give them over to 
another man. And then there’s my butter and eggs 
customers — I feel like I can’t give them up. Poor 
Lib, too! She’s got her hands full with the four 
children — and the baby’s so cross. She’s not got 
any too good health, either.” 


6 


DENA 


Grandmother’s faded blue eyes filled with tears 
which spilled one by one down the furrows of her 
wrinkled brown cheeks. Ardena’s own eyes, in the 
shadow of the fringe of red hair, glowed luminously 
and her hands, clasped in the folds of her dingy 
skirt, locked themselves tightly together. But for a 
moment only. “ Father thinks it best we manage 
by ourselves, too,” she said quietly, a strained note 
of reassurance in her voice. “ Doq’t worry about 
us, grandmother. We’ll make it all right. I’m sure 
we will.” 

“ And William T.’s only a baby.” Grandmoth- 
er’s solicitation kept urging her on. “ Five years 
old’s a pretty young age to be left without a mother. 
Iowa was a good mother to her children. You 
won’t ever get over her loss, Ardena. She was a 
good housekeeper and a good manager. And we 
all know she’s had little enough to manage with. . . . 
She wasn’t any hand to complain either, but she did 
what she had to do and she did it cheerfully. And 
she was a pretty girl. . . .” 

Out in the kitchen a clock was ticking its loud, in- 
trusive, shallow tick-tack. Horses’ hoofs sounded, 
a light buggy spun humming along the road before 
the open door and from across the street came the 
shouts of the children, 


IOWA ARDENA MARSH 


7 


“ Pump, pump, pull away ; 

Come or I’ll pull you away/’ 

followed by ringrng squeals. 

Grandmother nervously wadded a crumpled hand- 
kerchief in the tight grip of the black cotton gloves. 
“If only Alonzo wasn’t just at the age to wear out 
pants! He no need to squirm and wiggle around 
so much and then they wouldn’t give out so soon. 
Alonzo never was a hand to sit still. Cold weather’s 
coming on and he’ll begin to wear shoes and stock- 
ings and that’ll mean the darning to keep going. 
And you’ll be taken up with your studies — this be- 
ing your first year in the high school. But you want 
to learn to keep the mending up as you go along or 
you’ll see the things’ll be wearing out soon. And 
even if your father does seem to keep working right 
along he’s always found it hard to buy new even 
when Iowa was . . .” 

Ardena started to her feet, the rusty springs of 
the bumpy old lounge creaking as she rose. “ I’m 
forgetting something. I must make good use of you 
while you are here,” she said, as she hurried up the 
steep flight of stairs leading out of the sitting room. 
“ I’ve saved this little book to write down some 
recipes in,” she went on, as she came down, again 


8 


DENA 


seated herself on the lounge, and opened a little red 
notebook. “ I’m going to begin in a very sensible 
manner. Most of the girls are foolish over salads 
and cakes, but I’m going to begin with the staff of 
life,” commencing to write. “ Now, tell me all over 
again how to do it so that I’ll be sure to have the 
directions exact,” and Ardena attentively chewed the 
remnant of the eraser. “ I’ve made bread before — 
but then — Well, just how is it, grandmother? 
I know that I’ll forget the salt or the yeast or the 
flour or something. Recipes are harder to remem- 
ber than dates in history. But ‘ where there’s a will 
there’s a way ’ — and I will.” Ardena smiled 
bravely across at her grandmother. 

“ Yes,” grandmother answered, a bit dubiously. 
“ If only you’ll remember, Ardena. You mean 
well, but you’re real harum-scarum most of the time 
and there isn’t setting much dependence on you. 
But you’re getting older and since — ” 

“ ‘ Yeast,’ you said, didn’t you ? ” Ardena’s 
voice was a bit unsteady, and her head was lowered 
over the page. “ If I should forget the yeast 
Alonzo says he’ll blow some air into the dough with 
that bicycle pump he found. No, really, grand- 
mother dear, don’t look quite so disgusted, please. 
I’m sure I’ll remember to put in the yeast.” 


IOWA ARDENA MARSH 


9 


It was not until the sun was slanting through the 
west window that a quick pounding of heavy hoofs 
whirred the old surrey to a halt before the house. 

“ There’s Logan now,” grandmother exclaimed, 
hastily rising. “ I wrapped Alonzo’s pants I’m go- 
ing to patch and the little suit of William T.’s that 
was started and never finished in the same bundle, 
didn’t I? I’ll try to get them ready for Logan to 
bring back next Saturday. But it’s not much time I 
get for sewing with so much to do. And then the 
other bundle, too, Ardena, — your mother’s things. 
They’ll be yours later, only I want them while I live. 
Tell Logan I’m coming.” 

Alonzo had already stationed himself near the 
stamping grays, his brown freckled face squinting 
in the sunlight and his hair in damp strings about 
his bare head. From a small whirl of dust was 
emerging William T., stout of frame and plump of 
cheek, as he made his way frantically across the 
street. 

“ Don’t forget to keep an eye on William T.,” 
grandmother was saying to Ardena as they came 
down the walk from the house. “ Put the matches 
up on the clock shelf and stick the hatchet up under 
the roof of the shed each time. Hang the kerosene 
can up on a nail and don’t let William T. go down 


10 


DENA 


the cellar steps alone. And then I most believe that 
bed won’t look quite so bumpy if you turn the mat- 
tress ’round the way it was in the first place. And 
when a hole comes in the rag carpet, darn it right 
off, Ardena, before it sets in to ravel. Oatmeal in 
the bulk’s cheaper than in the package and beef’s not 
as high as pork now. Wash your dishes after each 
meal and then they won’t pile up so. Don’t leave 
them till you come from school — it takes the shine 
off the knives and forks. And don’t forget to sweep 
under the beds and behind the stove and iron your 
starched things before you do your plain clothes.” 

“ Yes, grandmother, I promise faithfully to do my 
very, very best. I’m going to be as much like 
mother as I can,” Ardena answered, and threw her 
arms impulsively about her grandmother’s neck and 
pressed her fresh warm lips against the withered 
cheek. “ You’ve been so good to us. We — we — ” 
But grandmother had bent down to kiss Alonzo. 
And then she bent lower and kissed William T. 

Uncle Logan, big and homely and good, stepped 
to the ground to help grandmother into the front 
seat beside him. Then he patted Ardena on the 
shoulder, dropped a sack of candy into William T.’s 
grimy little hands and climbed over the wheel. A 
wave to Ardena, a forward lunge of the horses, a 


IOWA ARDENA MARSH 


ii 


whir of wheels, and they were gone. Alonzo and 
William T. were dividing impartially the pink and 
the white gumdrops, with the empty sack to com- 
pensate for the uneven number. But Ardena still 
gazed down the road at the fast dispersing cloud of 
dust, her eyes luminous again behind the blowing 
fringe of red hair. Then William T. was slipping a 
sticky gumdrop into her hand with a “ Here, 
Dena,” and Alonzo was insisting that she take 
a generous helping from his handful. Ardena 
blinked again. And then she smiled. 


CHAPTER II 


OF FOOTBALL FAME 

The Marsh family quickly settled down to the 
new order of things. Ardena truly tried to live up 
to the good promises she had made her grand- 
mother, but there were many and frequent lapses. 
The meals to get, the dishes to wash, the beds to 
make, the washing, the ironing, the scrubbing — it 
was a physical impossibility to do it all as she knew 
that her grandmother wished it done and she realized 
that her grandmother was often all but completely 
discouraged. Ardena, it must be said, sometimes 
just willfully drifted and the Marsh housekeeping 
consisted of the proverbial lick and promise. But 
at fourteen one is much more vitally concerned with 
high school football games than with housekeeping. 
It was the good little grandmother who kept the ship 
floating, for she did the sewing for the family and 
came in frequently for a day or two of general clean- 
ing up. Mr. Marsh cut short the reading of his 
paper on Saturday morning and turned the wash- 
12 


OF FOOTBALL FAME 


13 


ing machine and at frequent intervals curtailed the 
perusal of an absorbing book or article to lend a 
hand at housework. Alonzo did the chores and 
assisted with the detested dishes. In answering to 
William T.’s many and varied needs each immediate 
and distant member of the Marsh family was subject 
to call. 

Ardena was keenly alive to all that pertained to 
the first-year class of the Arcadia high school. She 
loved her books, getting her lessons with a flash that 
was bewildering to her slow-minded, though lovable, 
little school comrade, Leta Lindsey. At the present 
season of the year Ardena was a devoted football 
fan — that is, as devoted a fan as it was possible to 
become with the serious handicap of the usually un- 
available price of admittance to the athletic field. 

In the Arcadia high school that fall, the football 
season had progressed to the third game. The first 
two games were little spoken of in Arcadia school 
circles; the scores were soon forgotten. But the 
third game merited attention — the Arcadia foot- 
ball team had won. 

Ardena had been present at this game. And now 
she was the last of the last ecstatic group of girls to 
leave the field. It had been a perfect autumn day, 
the team had won, and she had been there, the req- 


14 


DENA 


uisite twenty-five cents for once being in possession 
at the decisive moment. 

“ Isn’t it just glorious, Ardena? ” Leta was say- 
ing. 

“ It makes me feel all thrilly and proud !” Ardena 
exclaimed in an outburst of emotion. 

“ And isn’t Carlton Bell a fine player? And isn’t 
Adelbert Hastings ? ” Leta’s admiration for the 
battle-torn heroes some two blocks on ahead was un- 
stinted. 

“ And we’re going to have a celebration,” Ar- 
dena repeated, as they crossed the street. “ Oh, I 
just think we ought to do something real big and 
wonderful — ” But some other girl in the crowd 
had had a bigger, newer thought. 

At the next street corner Ardena parted from the 
group and hurried on by herself. With her hair 
blowing about her face and her faded blue cloak 
flapping in the wind she pressed her dingy cap more 
firmly down on her head and finally broke into a 
run. Some blocks away from the main street she 
turned breathless up the walk leading to an old, 
dimmed, weather-beaten house that slanted its two 
stories, straight and plain, from the street. Wil- 
liam T., apparently the only one at home, was visible 
through a cloud of dust in the middle of the street, 


OF FOOTBALL FAME 


I S 

for at the age of five William T. had caught the 
spirit of the season and against Budge Cracker of 
across the street was vigorously defending his rights 
to a wadded sofa pillow. 

Hurrying up the loose front steps Ardena pushed 
aside the dust-laden mat, found the key and fitted it 
in the lock just as a rolling of carriage wheels and a 
pounding of heavy hoofs drew her attention again 
to the street. It was Uncle Logan and Aunt Lib 
and the four children. Ardena, leaving the key in 
the lock, hastened down the plank sidewalk out to 
the old surrey halted at the hitching post. Aunt Lib 
had been to the dentist’s. Then the purchasing of 
shoes for the family of four had consumed the rest 
of the afternoon, and they had stopped for supper 
before starting on their six-mile drive home. Uncle 
Logan hitched the team. Ardena helped Annie and 
Bessie and Charlie to alight, while gentle Aunt Lib 
with a swollen cheek and hat askew, carried a cross 
baby to the house. 

A half dozen extra meant more elaborate prepara- 
tions for supper. Ardena whisked on a ragged 
kitchen apron which lay draped over the back of the 
wooden rocking chair and catching up a rusty tin 
pan from the cupboard plunged down into the damp, 
musty cellar for potatoes. But the potatoes being a 


1 6 


DENA 


mere scattering over the bottom of the barrel, Ar- 
dena was forced to think out a more varied menu. 
The supply of eggs was also inadequate, there be- 
ing but two rolling in the depths of the peach basket. 
Ardena, while busy peeling the potatoes, was truly 
perplexed. And meanwhile the fretful wail of the 
baby came from the sitting room and the three chil- 
dren in visiting idleness squeaked their new shoes 
unweariedly over the resounding boards of the 
kitchen floor. Uncle Logan came in finally. Uncle 
Logan, big and homely and good, discerned the sit- 
uation at a glance and dispatched the children to the 
yard while he himself went back up town for a sup- 
ply of provisions. 

At six o’clock William T. and the three small 
cousins sought the shelter of the house, the evening 
dampness threatening the luster of the new shoes. 
Alonzo, one of the spectators of the football game 
from a neighboring tree, had at length straggled in 
and adding himself to the group in the sitting room 
had started a game of tag. Back and forth on the 
carpet lounge, around the stove and over the chairs 
they jumped and “ tagged ” while Ardena poked the 
kitchen fire to urge the kettle of potatoes to a boil. 
At this juncture Mr. Marsh appeared. 

“ Good evening — good evening. Glad to see 


OF FOOTBALL FAME 


17 


you,” Mr. Marsh, spare and nervous, enthusiastically 
greeted Uncle Logan, who was cutting thick slices 
of bread. “ I didn’t know you were in town to-day. 
Why didn’t you drop into the office to see me? 
Glad you stopped for supper — it will kind of even 
things up. Ardena, how are you getting along? 
Things most ready? Oh, going to have steak, are 
you? ” Mr. Marsh made haste to hang his frayed 
overcoat on the nail by the door, a folded newspaper 
protruding from the torn pocket. “ Well, I’ll cook 
that. A woman can’t cook steak. Now, get your 
skillet good and hot — can’t cook steak without a 
fire. Here, Alonzo,” he called, as Alonzo darted out 
to the kitchen in a wiggling endeavor to escape 
catching, “ run out to the wood pile for some chips 
— quick now.” 

“ Father,” Ardena remonstrated, the heat of the 
stove making her face glow as brightly as the hair 
that crowned it, “ do let me alone this once. If no 
one bothers me, I’ll have this supper ready in fif- 
teen minutes. You’ll have enough time to sit down 
and look over your paper.” Ardena thought to 
divert his attention. 

But in the matter of cooking steak Mr. Marsh was 
obdurate. He filled the stove with chips, crammed 
down stove lids, and poked ashes from the coals at 


i8 


DENA 


the hearth. Thin puffs of blue smoke curled from 
the cracks and openings and finally the smouldering 
embers crackled into life and the fire roared up the 
chimney. Reaching for the piece of steak Mr. 
Marsh slapped it in the pan, the grease spattering up 
and burning him. In the next room the baby 
screamed and stiffened in a fresh burst of cries and 
the game of tag resulted in knocking over a chair. 

“ Good gracious, Ardena !” Mr. Marsh burst out. 
“ I always told you a woman couldn’t cook steak. 
I ought to have started this fire from the very be- 
ginning. It is a shame if you can’t get up a good 
plain meal with less fuss and trouble than you seem 
to be having with this one. You’ve seen Aunt Lib 
give us a regular feast without ten minutes’ warn- 
ing. I’ve spoken to you several times about looking 
out for the future and planning ahead and having 
things on hand. A woman that isn’t forehanded 
and foreheaded — ” but the constant sizzling of the 
meat drowned the completion of the sentence. 

Then Uncle Logan saved the situation a second 
time. He departed for the sitting room and Aunt 
Lib for the kitchen. Cutting short the game of tag 
he settled each energetic participant on a separate 
seat and then commenced a gentle, patient, deter- 
mined pacing up and down the room with the baby. 


OF FOOTBALL FAME 


19 


Meanwhile Aunt Lib, a practised hand, was turning 
out a juicy piece of meat, stirring a panful of rich 
brown gravy, beating up a kettle of fluffy potatoes 
and in every way producing the delectable and tempt- 
ing. Ardena helped at every needed point and 
silently felt her admiration for the white-faced, slen- 
der woman with the swollen cheek and steady brown 
eyes grow stronger than ever. Aunt Lib personified 
the willingness of Ardena’s spirit, the goal of her 
housewifely intentions. 

It was dark when the family were finally bundled 
into the carriage and started on the home journey. 
Then Mr. Marsh fitted the one remaining button of 
his frayed overcoat in the buttonhole, put on his 
rusty hat and went back to the office. It had been 
previously agreed that Alonzo was to take care of 
William T. that evening and Ardena realized the 
first free moment in hours. She closed the kitchen 
door upon the mountain-like pile of dishes stacked 
on the kitchen table and from behind the lounge in 
the sitting room dragged out her cloak, the faded 
blue one, buttonless and short of sleeves. 

“ Now, Alonzo, don’t go away while I’m gone. 
And keep William T. in the house. Can’t you and 
William T. wash the dishes we’ll need for break- 
fast? And put William T. to bed before long,” 


20 


DENA 


she directed as she re-tied the green tie at her throat. 

Alonzo, however, sat gloomily silent on the edge 
of the old carpet lounge, the springs of which bulged 
up around him at varying peaks and angles. 

44 I didn’t promise I’d stay home this very night,” 
he answered, his hands burrowed in his pockets. 

44 But the next night was your turn and this is 
the next night. I’ve stayed home the last three 
times, so I’ve played fair. And, Lonzy, I do want 
to see the celebration. It was such a glorious game ! 
You can go when you’re in the high school.” Then 
as she pinned on the tasselless tarn o’ shanter she 
coaxed, 44 Why don’t you finish the 4 Revolutionary 
Heroes’? Or you can take the clock to pieces if 
you’ll stay. It won’t run the way it is, so you can’t 
hurt it much.” But Alonzo, non-committal, contin- 
ued to sit on the bumpy lounge, his dark hair tossed 
about, his blue eyes unrelenting and his hands still 
burrowed in his pockets, while in the corner of the 
room on the floor William T. industriously emptied 
a battered bookcase of its lower row of encyclope- 
dias. So Ardena opened the door and hurried out 
into the cool darkness. 

Adelbert Hastings had donated the dry goods 
boxes from the back of his father’s store for the cele- 
bration and the boys had piled them up at the corner 


OF FOOTBALL FAME 


21 


of the courthouse square. After a short but spir- 
ited parade in honor of the victory the huge pile of 
boxes was lighted and the smoke and flames rose 
soaring and crackling straight up into the blue still- 
ness of the November night. Then the ring of 
dancing, yelling, singing and cheering boys and girls 
circled around it. When from the tower of the 
courthouse above them nine clear claps cut the 
night air the flames had sunk to jets of fire that 
darted out and back and died down lower. At 
length one flame, catching at a little pile of unburned 
straw, spread a circle of light around the square and 
revealed Alonzo, unwarily foremost of the group of 
small boys at the outskirts of the crowd. Then Ar- 
dena, Cinderella-like, fled. The everyday world 
with its responsibilities was held off no longer. The 
littered kitchen, the neglected William T., the faith- 
less Alonzo darted through her mind and crowded 
out the bonfire, the parade, the noise, the fun. And 
Ardena sped homeward, down dark hollow streets, 
past dark closed houses and into the black shade of 
low-bending trees. 

When still some distance away she knew that her 
fears were not groundless, for wail upon wail, deep 
and long and woeful, came to her ready ear. Faster 
than ever Ardena cut across the corner and ran 


22 


DENA 


down the next block. At the corner she all but col- 
lided with a little bunch of misery hidden in the 
shadow of the trees. 

“ Oh ! ” she breathed, grasping for the coatless, 
the hatless, the forlorn William T. “ Oh, I’m so 
glad you aren’t dead ! Here’s Dena. Don’t cry so, 
honey, we’ll go home.” She took his cold, damp 
little hand in hers and tried to urge him along the 
board sidewalk, in and out of the dark shadows. 

But William T. was inconsolable and continued 
to dig a fat little fist into a tear-dripping eye. Up 
the plank walk to the porch and up the sunken steps 
Ardena drew him. When she opened the door a 
kerosene lamp, burning dimly on the littered center- 
table, was emitting a smoky, stifling odor. The fire 
had gone out, books and papers lay scattered about 
on the rag carpet and the meager furniture of the 
room stood crowded in the corner. And the child 
continued in his grief. Ardena, meanwhile, was 
groping about the dark kitchen for a lamp with more 
oil in it. Having found one, finally, and lighted it 
and blown out the other she began to lift the half- 
burnt sticks of wood from the cold stove. But Wil- 
liam T., his anguish becoming more intense, swelled 
himself afresh and continued to pour forth his feel- 
ings of cold and hunger and drowsiness and neglect 


OF FOOTBALL FAME 


23 


in a fresh series of wails. Ardena could really 
make pretenses of deafness no longer — nor turn 
from the inevitable. He must be distracted some 
way. Looking around for something — anything, 
her eye fell first upon a worn limp purse on the clock 
shelf. This she tossed at William T. and then 
went on whittling shavings for the stove. 

William T., whether tired out or cried out or 
charmed with the novelty of the gift, became paci- 
fied. Rolling on the floor, he opened the purse in 
the air, the pennies falling on his upturned face. 
Ardena laid the fire and turned for a match. But 
with a startled jump she grabbed the coughing, 
choking William T. by the heels and staggering to 
her feet shook him in mid-air with all her strength 
until the penny popped out of his mouth. Then 
letting him slide to the floor she sank into the old 
wooden rocking chair while William T., scared and 
blinking, silently adjusted himself to a more natural 
poise. 

“ For the land sake, Ardena Marsh, what on earth 
is the matter over here ! ” Mrs. Shute, small and 
bony, entered at the half-open door, a red flannel 
shawl encircling her narrow, alert face. “ I never 
heard such yelling in all my days — or nights either ! 
Who’s getting killed? Ebenezer’s been off to bed 


24 


DENA 


since nine, but I declare to goodness I couldn’t go till 
I found out about this racket over here. So I finally 
says to myself, as I was warming my feet in the 
kitchen oven, * Well, I’ll put on my shoes and I’ll go 
over and I’ll see for myself what those children are 
up to.’ ” 

“ It’s only William T.,” Ardena answered meekly. 

“Well, it’s enough,” Mrs. Shute admitted as she 
came into the room. “ I’ve heard him hollering for 
the last hour. Where’ve you been ? ” 

“ I’ve been down to the football celebration. I 
thought Alonzo was going to stay with William T., 
but I guess he didn’t.” 

“ That’s just like a boy. I should think you’d 
know better than to set any dependence on a boy. 
Seems to me with your responsibilities your place is 
at home ’tending to things instead of gallervanting 
’round to such foolish doings as football celebra- 
tions! What makes William T. so quiet now?” 
Mrs. Shute turned her face with its sharp little lines 
that melted into softness at the slightest provoca- 
tion upon William T., a miserable little heap on the 
floor. “ Seems to me he looks rather white.” 

“ He — he just swallowed a penny,” Ardena con- 
fessed. “ But it came up.” 

“ For goodness’ sake, Ardena, he didn’t swallow 


OF FOOTBALL FAME 


25 


a penny! I was reading in the paper the other 
night about death resulting from swallowed cop- 
pers. Blood poison set in and he went right off. 
That child doesn’t look exactly natural to me. 
Come here, William T.” 

“ No, no, Mrs. Shute, he’s all right, he’s all right. 
William T., aren’t you, aren’t you? ” Ardena, de- 
termined that it should not be otherwise, grabbed the 
impassive William T., pulled him down on her lap 
and began to rock him frantically. “ He’s only 
sleepy, Mrs. Shute. The penny came up.” 

“ Well, I’d kind of watch him a little, if he were 
mine.” Mrs. Shute, doubling her pointed arms up 
under the fringe of the red plaid shawl, turned to 
go. “ You’d both better get right into bed and get 
a night’s rest. He’ll probably be all right by morn- 
ing. Here’s your father now,” as she stepped out 
on the porch and encountered Mr. Marsh coming up 
the walk. “ William T. swallowed a penny.” 

“ Did it come up? ” asked Mr. Marsh. 

“ Yes, it’s up,” assented Mrs. Shute. 

“ I guess he’ll live then,” he answered whimsi- 
cally. 

“ He isn’t showing quite the signs of life he was 
a few minutes ago,” retorted Mrs. Shute in good- 
natured bantering. 


26 


DENA 


Mr. Marsh was tired — tired and worried. Ar- 
dena gave him the rocker, laying the sleeping Wil- 
liam T. down on the lounge. Alonzo, coming in, 
departed straightway for upstairs and bed, his heavy 
shoes clumping up the uncarpeted stairs. In pass- 
ing, Alonzo had guiltily avoided glancing over at 
Ardena. But Ardena wasn’t thinking about Alonzo 
at all. 

“ Father, do you think I’d better start the fire, or 
is it too late? ” Ardena was questioning, solicitation 
in her voice and manner. 

“ No, no,” Mr. Marsh answered wearily. “ Let 
it go — let it go. It’ll save a stick of wood.” 

“ But don’t you want to finish your newspaper or 
read your book? ” Ardena insisted, surprise urging 
her fears. 

“ No, no,” he refused. “ I mustn’t sit up so late 
nights burning oil and wood,” and, worn out, he 
folded his hands listlessly, the coat sleeves falling 
frayed and faded about his wrists. “ I only wanted 
to tell you to manage well, Ardena. Better days 
will come — after awhile. But for the present we’ll 
have to draw in a little.” 

Ardena, though accustomed to a life of “ draw- 
ing in” and hopefully expectant of the “better 


OF FOOTBALL FAME 


27 

day,” was touched afresh by the direct appeal. 
“ Yes,” she answered. 

Mr. Marsh slowly unfastened a knotted string 
and let a worn shoe fall heavily to the floor. “ Don’t 
think I’m finding fault, Ardena. You’re doing well, 
child, well indeed. You’re filling your mother’s 
place.” 

“ Yes,” she answered, her voice low, her eyes large 
and deep behind the fluffy fringe of red hair. 

But later, carrying a smoky little lamp up the steep 
flight of narrow stairs, she was revolving many 
things in her mind and her heart. One cannot be 
fourteen and forty at the same time. She would try 
again to be forty. 


CHAPTER III 


SPEAKING DAY 

Washington’s Birthday was “ speaking day ” in 
Arcadia. It was speaking day down in the first- 
reader room where William T. swung his fat little 
legs from the third seat in the first row. It was 
speaking day in the fifth room where Alonzo car- 
tooned the pages of Potter’s “ Geography.” And 
it was speaking day in the high school where Ar- 
dena, in the second semester of her first year, was 
beginning the study of the ablative case with the 
puzzling ablative absolute. 

The Heralds and the Amphictyonic League, rival 
literary societies in the high school, had been lately 
organized and the chief spirit they fostered was that 
of bitter rivalry, a result which was both surprising 
and regrettable to the teachers who had advocated 
their establishment. The two societies were to meet 
every two weeks in separate classrooms, with a joint 
meeting every other session. The first joint meet- 


SPEAKING DAY 


29 


ing fell on Washington’s Birthday. On the twenty- 
second, then, was to occur the first formal contest — 
the trial of strength. But down in the fifth room 
they were to celebrate from a motive of patriotism 
alone. In the first room it was purely “ speaking 
day.” 

Ardena was a Herald. Loyalty was one of Ar- 
dena’s dominant traits; thus waiving the fact of but 
one invitation, to be a Herald had been her crowning 
ambition from the start. 

“ Father,” Ardena said one day about a week 
before the twenty-second, as she tried to stir the sit- 
ting room fire into more life, “ I’m on the debate for 
Washington’s Birthday. I believe I’ll just love de- 
bating. It’s next to being a boy.” 

Mr. Marsh glanced up, his finger guarding the 
unwatched line. “ Is that so ? What is the sub- 
ject of the debate? ” 

“ Restricting immigration,” Ardena responded, 
between pokes at the sizzling fire. “ * I’m ag’in it,’ 
to quote Mr. Shute.” 

“ It seems to me that the subject is hardly suited 
to the occasion,” he answered, amusement softening 
his plain features. “ I don’t much fancy that 
Franklin or Washington or any other colonist raised 
that question.” 


30 


DENA 


“ Well, you see,” Ardena was still struggling with 
the sizzling propensities of that log of wood, “ I 
didn’t have a thing to do with the program. Elia- 
kim Meeker was chairman of the program commit- 
tee and he put himself and Annabel Dilly against 
me and Reuben Green. Eliakim likes debates and 
that sort of thing and is good at it and Annabel Dilly 
is the biggest dig in the high school. She’d read all 
around a library to get ready. And he put Reuben 
Green with me. Why, poor Reuben stutters so that 
if he did have a thought he couldn’t tell it! Elia- 
kim’s an Amphictyonic Leaguer, and we Heralds 
rather think it looks as if the Amphictyons had tried 
to put one over on us. I’m going to work my very 
hardest to win that debate for the Heralds, though. 
Dear, dear, this fire ! Yes, I — ” 

But the clumsy rockers of the wooden chair had 
given a final and decided squeak and the crazy work 
cushion on its back fell limp. The magazine lay 
face downward on the red wool stand-cover. 

“ Ardena, give that poker to me,” Mr. Marsh de- 
manded in nervous exasperation. “If there’s one 
thing a woman can’t do it is to make a fire. Get me 
some paper and kindling and in the future leave the 
making of the fires to me. And by the way, Ar- 
dena, I don’t like the habit you are getting into of 


SPEAKING DAY 


3i 

using high school slang. It may be expressive, but 
it is certainly not elegant English.” 

“ Yes,” Ardena replied quickly, “ only — ” But 
then she stopped short. Mr. Marsh was not to be 
trifled with. Recalled from the future of China to 
build a fire in a chilly sitting room was not mellow- 
ing Mr. Marsh’s frame of mind. Besides, from 
the kitchen, the insistent voice of William T. was 
laying claim to a lump of brown sugar. So Ardena 
departed peaceably, if not in peace. 

Saturday evening it was Mr. Marsh’s unfailing 
habit to go down to Doctor Stubbs’s house for a 
game of chess, “ Doc ” Stubbs being a lonely and 
eccentric old bachelor, much given to playing chess 
and talking politics. He had put on his shabby 
overcoat preparatory to facing the sharp north wind 
when he suddenly stopped with his hand on the 
kitchen door knob. “ By the way, Ardena, how’s 
the debate coming? I’ve just finished those articles 
on China I was interested in, so I’ll have more time 
to help you. What did you say the subject was? ” 
Ardena was carrying a plate of bread and a 
pitcher of milk to the pantry. “ It’s about restrict- 
ing immigration,” she answered, pausing. 

Mr. Marsh, again taking off his hat, became inter- 
ested in the subject at once. “ I’ll stop at the library 


32 


DENA 


on the way down to Doc’s and look up some refer- 
ences. And I’ll bring home some of the doctor’s 
Outlooks. I remember that I saw an article in one 
of them that will help you. And I’ll try to find time 
to-morrow evening to look over the back files of my 
magazines.” 

“ Aw,” Alonzo, leaning against the wall, kicked 
pugnaciously at the wainscoating, “ don’t go and get 
Ardena crazier than she is on debating. She’s never 
around to tend to things — she’s always off chasing 
up some papers. Debating isn’t meant for girls,” 
Alonzo concluded, his freckled face clouded with 
disgust. 

Mr. Marsh turned around again, but his mind 
was apparently wandering from the subject in ques- 
tion. “ Alonzo, I don’t exactly like the way you 
have been tinkering with the old rocking chair. I 
wish that you would be more content to let things 
alone. I know that it does sway back uncomfort- 
ably if one is not watchful, yet I do not think that 
putting those old springs under the rockers will 
prove a remedy. I’ll get a new chair before long 
and then we can put that one in my room. Stay 
home to-night, too. You’ve been going over to the 
Slocums’ too many nights lately. This running 
around nights is a bad habit to get into. And don’t 


SPEAKING DAY 


33 


forget that your regular bedtime is eight o’clock. 
I’ll try to be home early,” and the old kitchen door 
was slammed loosely into its casing. Alonzo struck 
the wall a last protesting whack while Ardena has- 
tened to replace the plate of bread and the pitcher of 
milk on the table and to give her immediate atten- 
tion to William T., who was becoming insistent in 
his request for a second piece of some of Mrs. 
Shute’s chocolate cake. 

Thus the twenty-second was slowly but surely 
drawing nearer. Thursday evening Ardena hurried 
the family through supper. When the dishes were 
washed and put away she let the leaves of the table 
fall with a bang and shoved it back against the wall, 
the white oilcloth still wet and shining from its late 
cleaning. Then she brought out a thick stack of 
hastily written pages, laid the papers down on the 
table and buried her bushy head in her hands. The 
door leading into the sitting room was closed and 
Ardena for a time felt free to think. She had re- 
peated to herself about three of the pages and was 
scribbling more notes on another sheet of paper 
when the door was wiggled open and William T. 
appeared, his large eyes round and serious. 

“ Dena, you didn’t hear me say my piece yet to- 
night — you didn’t.” 


34 


DENA 


With such a bold accusation as this confronting 
her Ardena was forced to give a moment’s attention. 

“ Oh, William T.,” she coaxed, “ I know you 
know it. Why don’t you say it to father? ” She 
buried her head in her hands again, shut her eyes 
and began repeating her debate to herself. 

“ He doesn’t look,” William T. ruefully persisted. 
“ He keeps reading right on along.” 

But as Mr. Marsh had continued to read, so Ar- 
dena continued to memorize her debate and at 
length the door was hitched shut with a slam. 

Then Ardena was left undisturbed for a whole 
hour. It was Alonzo who next presented himself. 

“ Say, Ardena,” he announced, a shade of uneasi- 
ness in his direct tone, “ you’re sure grandma’ll have 
my pants in here to-morrow, aren’t you? If I don’t 
get those pants, I’ll just have to stay home from 
school. You told her about making them short, 
didn’t you? Grandmother always makes my duds 
big enough to fit me when I’m grown up.” 

“ Alonzo, I know she knows you want those pants 
for to-morrow. She’ll have them ready. Aunt Lib 
or Uncle Logan will bring them in. Now, don’t 
keep fussing so all of the time. She knows how big 
you are.” 

“Well, say, Ardena, couldn’t you just hear me 


SPEAKING DAY 


35 

say my piece over once? I’d hate like sixty to for- 
get it.” 

“ Oh, Alonzo,” and Ardena became petulant, 
“ why on earth do I have to listen to that old ‘ Paul 
Revere’s Ride ’ again ? I could stand on my head 
and say it backwards now. Say it over to yourself 
and you’ll know when you forget it.” 

“ I suppose debating’s something new,” and in- 
stantaneously the door slammed. 

Then there was an interval of two hours. At the 
end of that time the door knob turned again and 
Mr. Marsh appeared, lamp in hand. 

“ Come, come, Ardena. Let debating alone long 
enough to attend to the house. Never can tell when 
a light is going out on me. Come, you’d better go 
to bed now and let me have your lamp. Alonzo’s 
been abed an hour and William T.’s asleep on the 
floor. I have only the last chapter to read and then 
I’m going, too.” 

And the next day was Friday. Ardena did not 
wait for company home at noon but ran down the 
street, across the church corner and through Slo- 
cum’s empty lot. William T. was already at home. 
Ardena whisked the tablecloth on and put a stick of 
wood in the kitchen stove. It was some time before 
Alonzo burst in. 


36 


DENA 


“ Teacher kept us to tell us about this afternoon. 
My pants come ? ” 

“ There's father — ask him,” Ardena answered 
as she pulled a pan from the cupboard with a clatter 
of falling tin. “ I haven’t been in the sitting room 
yet” 

But Alonzo’s star was fast whirling down the path 
of calamity. Mr. Marsh had forgotten to bring 
home the packages which Uncle Logan in his haste 
had so unluckily thought of leaving at the office. 
Alonzo only blinked at the news and, swallowing a 
half-cooked potato and some apple sauce, was off 
down the street. 

“ I’m sorry,” Mr. Marsh said, as he absently 
brushed the crumbs from his vest. “ I thought of 
those things every consecutive minute this morning 
until the last one. It will hurry Alonzo.” 

But Ardena was already scrubbing William T.’s 
hands and face and tying a treasured red necktie in 
a big bow. Then William T. departed, anticipating 
the ringing of the first bell by a quarter of an hour. 

It was much later when Ardena was ready. Up 
before a cracked mirror in a low room with sloping 
walls Ardena was studying a varied assortment of 
apparel. But a blue ribbon about her neck and a 
gold brooch of her mother’s she finally persuaded 


SPEAKING DAY 


37 


herself were sufficient to balance an outgrown shirt- 
waist, a sagging skirt and a mass of red hair brushed 
to a flattened smoothness. When she was ready Ar- 
dena was radiant. She had even remembered to 
black her shoes. 

Ardena found Leta Lindsey waiting for her in 
the corridor of the schoolhouse. Calm and com- 
posed Leta was prettier than ever in a crisp new 
silk waist and a faultlessly pleated skirt. 

“You’ve forgotten your hair ribbon, Ardena/’ 
she gently reminded. “ Here, I have two on my 
braid and I need only one. It’s black and will look 
well with your hair. Now there, you’re all right. 
Don’t be one bit afraid, Ardena. We Heralds know 
you’re a match for Eliakim and Annabel. Oh, why, 
what makes your shoes shine so funny? Oh, Ar- 
dena, I do believe it’s stove polish! Well, never 
mind,” she tactfully entreated, as Ardena hastily 
drew back her skirt. “ It only shows when you look 
one way.” 

The big study-hall had an unfamiliar look. The 
girls were in strange and very new dresses and the 
boys seemed reserved and awkward in their stiff 
collars and best suits and polished shoes. There 
was an unaccustomed freedom to the place and the 
teachers kept themselves in the background. 


38 


DENA 


The debate was the last thing on the program. 
Eliakim Meeker led off. Eliakim was a tall, thin, 
awkward youth who spoke from notes in a manner 
that attempted the easy and offhand. But Ardena 
listened most attentively and made a number of 
notes on a pad of paper. Reuben Green began the 
negative. Ardena knew that Reuben had a number 
of valuable points for their side, but poor Reuben 
delivered them in such a confused and stuttering 
manner that even Ardena had hard work to catch 
his meaning. Reuben didn’t even finish and Ar- 
dena’s pencil was flying across the paper with light- 
ning strokes as Reuben, red-faced and perspiring, 
descended the steps from the platform. Then came 
Annabel Dilly. Annabel was very small and very 
thin and very white and very precise. Her big long 
braid of hair was combed straight back from a 
high forehead and her dress was skimpy and tight 
and dark. She read her debate. But she read it 
well, and the points she brought out were carefully 
selected, studied over and arranged. Ardena gave 
the closest attention to every word that Annabel so 
accurately enunciated. 

And then before she fully realized it her turn had 
come. All absorbed in what she had to say she was 
entirely unconscious of the long aisle she was pass- 


SPEAKING DAY 


39 


ing through, the steps she was mounting to the plat- 
form and the sea of faces she found below her. 
When she spoke there was decision in her voice and 
there was fire in her manner. She was confident of 
herself, for her arguments were varied and many 
and important. Her eyes shone large with excite- 
ment, her cheeks were flushed, and her hair, escaped 
from its recent flattening out, curled about her face 
in a bright wave of color. In spite of the out-of- 
date shirtwaist and the sagging skirt — yes, even 
in spite of the glistening shoes, Ardena stand- 
ing there slim and straight and glowing made a 
pleasing picture. She felt her audience — she knew 
that she had aroused them and that she was carrying 
them with her. From confidence her mood passed 
easily into that of elation. In spite of a poor col- 
league she would win out yet — she would show the 
Amphictyons the real strength of the Heralds. She 
wanted to convince Eliakim Meeker that girls could 
debate as well as boys and she wanted to come out 
ahead of Annabel — her closest rival in classes. 

The negative won. The Heralds were victorious 
over the Amphictyons. And to Ardena was given 
the credit for the outcome. Leta hugged her in a 
burst of excitement, the Herald girls surrounded her 
with exclamations of delight and the boys offered 


40 


DENA 


congratulations. Ardena was radiantly happy and 
very self-satisfied. 

Later, hurrying down the corridor to the cloak- 
room, she ran straight into Eliakim Meeker who was 
standing by the stairway. Ardena, still filled with 
her elated feeling of victory, was passing on when 
Eliakim stepped manfully forward and offered sin- 
cere congratulations. 

“ You did it well, Ardena,” he said. “ The whole 
school ought to be proud of you. You had the 
goods and you knew how to deliver them.” 

Ardena’s elated spirits sank a little. She was too 
surprised and too humiliated to offer any return but 
a red-faced thank you and then to hurry on. 

Out in the cloakroom xAmnabel Dilly stood wait- 
ing for her. She put out her small white hand and 
said in the most simple and sincere manner possible, 
“ Congratulations, Ardena. I spent all of my spare 
time on my debate, but you had points I hadn’t come 
across in my reading. You deserve all of the con- 
gratulations. And, Ardena, you did deliver it so 
well. There is fire and there is magnetism in your 
manner. I can dig, but I can’t shine.” 

“ Oh, Annabel,” cried Ardena in the most humble 
of tones, “ you always do well at anything you at- 
tempt! You are far more conscientious and pains- 


SPEAKING DAY 


4i 


taking than I ever can be. You know that father 
and Doc Stubbs read and talk politics together so 
much of the time. Well, they gathered together lots 
of my material. I feel terribly ashamed of myself 
now — I don’t deserve all of the honor I have been 
given and you deserve more than you have been 
given.” Then, confused, Ardena hurried into her 
wraps and went on out of the building. 

Outside it was gloomy with a welcome chilliness f 
in the air. Ardena pulled her tasselless tarn o’ shan- 
ter down on her head, thrust her hands deep into 
the pockets of her faded blue cloak and walked 
home, straight down the two streets that led to the 
old house with its bald rigid side to the front. Fol- 
lowing the broken walk to the back of the house she 
was confronted by William T., huddled in a cold 
miserable little bunch on the doorstep. His face, 
inside the stocking cap, was swelled into a round red 
puff of woe and the treasured red necktie fell limp 
and bedraggled. 

“ Oh, William T., what is the matter now?” 

A sudden outlet to a stifled sob and two grimy lit- 
tle fists rendered speech for awhile impossible. But 
time and patience were finally rewarded. William 
T. had forgotten his piece. Budge had remembered 
his. And Budge’s mother arriving too late for that 


42 


DENA 


part of the program in which her maternal solicita- 
tion were most concerned, Budge had again recited 

— this time exclusively to his mother. And both 
renderings were faultless. 

“You — you didn’t pracus me ’nough times,” 
William T. accused. “ Budge — his mother, she — 
she pracus him two times every day and two times 
every night he — he goes to bed. And — and 
Budge and ’nother girl, they tell me I forget all com- 
ing — home. They — they say teacher’s m — mad 
at me.” 

Then Ardena became reflective. She wiped Wil- 
liam T.’s smudgy little face with her stiff embroid- 
ered handkerchief and offered a lump of brown 
sugar by way of reparation. 

But buoyancy did not return to Ardena’s spirits 

— it would take more than a lump of brown sugar. 
She silently swept the kitchen floor, washed the 
dishes left from the hasty noon lunch and filled the 
tea-kettle at the creaking pump. 

Supper was almost ready when Alonzo came in. 
Cold and wet and tired from a falling mist, he 
silently hung his paper carrier’s bag on a nail by the 
door. 

“ Tired, aren’t you, Alonzo? ” 


SPEAKING DAY 


43 

There was no answer. Ardena opened the oven 
door and tried a plump brown potato with a fork. 

“ How was the speaking? ” she questioned, bound 
to overlook discouragements. 

“ Where's the towel ? ” Alonzo, at the sink, was 
holding a dripping face in suspension. 

Ardena made a dash for a clean one. “ Did your 
pants fit ? ” she asked, growing bolder. 

Alonzo’s freckled face worked in an uncertain 
manner and his mouth twitched nervously. “ Those 
pants came to my shoetops.” He winced and went 
on. “ I hurried so ’t you could fix them if they 
needed it before I wore them, but you were gone. 
I told you to tell grandmother to be sure and make 
them short. I couldn’t wear these old things I got 
on now to speak in and I wasn’t going to be tardy. 
I had to leave those new ones on. The whole school 
kept snickering.” 

Ardena gave a little gasp. Mr. Marsh came in 
just then and she put the dish of potatoes and the 
platter of meat on the table and they sat down to 
eat. He looked tired and chilled and worried. 

“How was the debate, Ardena?” he asked by 
way of sociability. 

“ The negative won,” she responded quietly. 


44 


DENA 


“ Well, that's good news,” her father answered, 
with a slight glow of interest. “ I suppose,” at- 
tempting a slightly jocular mood, “ that you’ll be- 
come interested in woman suffrage next.” 

But since Ardena offered no further information 
of any kind the family ate in silence, each apparently 
absorbed with his own thoughts. Finally William 
T., seeming to come forth from behind a slice of 
bread and butter, again took up the conversation. 

“ Budge says that teacher’s mad at me. He says 
I spoiled speaking day.” 

Ardena met the accusation silently, momentarily 
expecting a bigger one from Alonzo. But it was 
worse than that — Alonzo was silent, his eyes intent 
upon the plate before him. Even William T., after 
a fruitless pause, turned his attention again to the 
diminishing slice, his troubles unshared. For grief 
does not heed grief. Ardena alone could feel it all 
— she was the cause of Alonzo’s chagrin, of Wil- 
liam T.’s failure and of her father’s silent mood. 
That she had won in the debate was of little import- 
ance ; she had paid too big a price for the victory. 

She must do something now to win back the good 
will of the family. So leaving her supper before 
the others had finished she went into the sitting 
room. There she lighted the lamp and, despite the 


SPEAKING DAY 


45 


fact of being a woman, built a cheery, blazing fire 
that lifted the dull dampness and warmed the bare- 
ness of the room to a homelike feeling. She placed 
a pair of worn carpet slippers at the back of the 
stove, picked up the wraps scattered about and tried 
to bring order to the laden center-table. 

Later, after she had washed the dishes, swept the 
floor and made things ready for the morning she 
opened the door and went back into the sitting room. 
Peace and calm had taken possession of the place. 
The old rocker creaked a steady, gentle creak — Mr. 
Marsh was reading Dickens. Tipped against the 
wall Alonzo was deep in the pages of “ The Life of 
P. T. Barnum ” and stretched on the floor, his heels 
waving in the air, William T. was audibly making 
out the fast dimming lines of “ T 11 huff and I’ll puff 
and Ell blow your house in.” 

From a machine in the corner heaped and topped 
with papers and books and clothing Ardena un- 
earthed a mending basket filled to overflowing with 
a conglomeration of scraps of cloth, snarled spools 
of thread and dangling pins and needles. Then 
bringing out the discarded trousers she sat down by 
the table. The warmth and the peace and the con- 
tentment of the room filled and satisfied her soul 
and the light came back to her face. After all, 


46 


DENA 


sweeping and cooking, and mending, if not quite so 
exciting as debating, were certainly more satisfac- 
tory. If debating was next to being a boy, sewing 
was decidedly being a girl. Ardena preferred sew- 
ing. 


CHAPTER IV 


THE FIRST OF MAY 

The woods were dull and lifeless, with a gray, un- 
compromising sky overhead and a rain-soaked earth 
beneath. Ardena, standing on the low bank of a 
muddy little stream, gathered her skirts together, 
flattened the faded tarn down upon her head and 
jumped. 

“ Oh, Leta,” she wailed as she pulled first one foot 
and then the other from the squashy mud at the edge 
of the stream, “ I thought I jumped farther. Dear, 
dear, dear ! ” squirming uncomfortably, “ the wa- 
ter’s clear over the tops of my rubbers. Oo — oo — 
but isn’t it dreadful — just perfectly awful! Wait 
a moment and I’ll fix some sticks across. You’d die 
if you got this much mud on you. There,” as she 
gingerly gathered an armful of the damp underbrush 
and with awkward throws scattered it across the 
narrowest place in the stream, “ now you’ll do bet- 
ter. Yes, throw the violets,” as two big bunches 
of damp flowers came flying through the air and fell 
between her outstretched hands. 

47 


4 8 


DENA 


“ It’s worth all our trouble, though,” Leta was 
absorbed in the arduous task of cleaning the patches 
of mud from her rubbers, searching here and there 
for little tufts of the tangled wet grass, '‘because it’s 
for Miss Miller. Really, don’t you think, Ardena, 
that she’s the very loveliest, loveliest teacher that you 
ever, ever knew? Oh, isn’t mud too dreadful! I 
won’t have any shine left on my rubbers. But she 
is the very sweetest teacher in the whole high school. 
I adore her more every day that I’m with her. And 
violets, you know, are her favorite flowers. Only 
I do wish they didn’t have to grow where mud’s so 
thick,” she protested, as she broke a stick and ap- 
plied it to the heel of her rubber. “ Yes, I believe 
our last plan is the best — to tie the bunch with rib- 
bon and fasten to it the verse of poetry that you’re 
going to write. When I stop for the ribbon on my 
way home, I think I’ll look for a pretty basket with 
a long handle to it. Then the whole thing will look 
simple and sweet and so like her. It’s a wretched 
shame it’s such a horrid May-basket night !” 

“ I should say so. My, but won’t we have a fine 
big bunch ! I never saw such big, dewy, purple vio- 
lets in my life. And every single flower is for Miss 
Miller. Look, Leta,” and Ardena lifted the bunch, 
“ don’t you think they’re just the color of her eyes? 


THE FIRST OF MAY 


49 


Fm thinking every minute about the sweetest verse 
I can possibly write. There’s 4 blue ’ and ‘ true ’ and 
‘ you ’ that I can use and there’s 4 violet ’ and ‘ not 
forget,’ ” Ardena rhymed, her voice trailing dream- 
ily off. “To make it real poetical I’d like to bring 
in something about the 4 lowing kine ’ but it doesn’t 
exactly go with ‘ rhyme.’ Then I could have 
brought it in with 4 night so fine,’ but that isn’t really 
true. It’s damp and drizzly and muddy and I’m 
afraid I won’t feel inspired. If it had only been 
nice weather, I know I could have written an idyll 
like * L’ Allegro ’ and spoken of the 4 russet lawns ’ 
(or probably the emerald lawns since this is spring) 
and 4 nibbling flocks ’ and 4 meadows trim with vio- 
lets pied.’ ” 

Leta, after carefully wiping her dark serge skirt 
with her handkerchief, placed the wad in the comer 
of her jacket pocket. 44 Oh, don’t think about the 
night, Ardena. Think only of Miss Miller. Why, 
she’s as tall and slender as a flower and as blithe- 
some as a bird and, and — oh, Ardena, I’m not poet- 
ical at all but I feel as if I almost could be when I’m 
with Miss Miller. And don’t put writing the verse 
off too late; you might not be able to think of the 
right word to rhyme or something like that.” 

Beneath the fringe of bright hair Ardena’s eyes 


50 


DENA 


kindled in merriment. “ Leta, you’re so funny — 
just a regular old dear! But do come on,” as she 
started forward. “ The biggest patch last spring 
was over here past these swinging grape-vines, I 
think. How dreary the woods look to-day ! I feel 
as if the world were too big when it’s like this.” 

“ Aren’t we going to have a perfectly beautiful 
bouquet! See how long these stems are. Can’t 
you imagine how delighted Miss Miller will be?” 
Leta murmured, her attention centered on the evad- 
ing violets at her feet. “ Doesn’t she look dear in 
that pretty dark blue dress? And don’t you think 
she reads beautifully? I felt like crying to-day 
when she was reading * The Prisoner of Chillon/ 
I love it anyway and then when she begins with, 

“ * My hair is gray, but not with years, 

Nor grew it white 
In a single night/ 

I feel myself growing all grand and creepy.” Leta, 
her eyes glistening with emotion, was overlooking 
the purple at her feet. 

Ardena straightened up, her dark eyes glowing. 
“Don’t you love it — love it, Leta? But the very 
best of all was in ‘ The Lady of the Lake ’ when 
she read where it says, 


THE FIRST OF MAY 


5i 


“ ‘ As chief, who hears his warden call, 

To arms ! the foeman storm the wall, 

The antlered monarch of the waste 
Sprung from his heathery couch in haste.’ ” 

But Leta had forgotten the violets entirely, her seri- 
ous blue eyes intent upon the speaker before her who 
with eyes sparkling and cheeks flushing recited the 
stanza to the close. 

“ How grand ! ” Leta applauded when Ardena had 
finished. “ Why, Ardena, it was almost like Miss 
Miller. When you began ‘ A moment gazed adown 
the dale’ I grew all creepy and thrilly exactly as if 
Miss Miller really was saying it. ,, 

“ I can’t help it, Leta. I love that poem from 
beginning to end. I recite parts of it to Alonzo 
while we’re doing the dishes. But we must get to 
work again. It will be dark early to-night.” 

For the next few moments they worked in silence 
with only now and then a crackling branch, a bird’s 
hurried flight or a distant tinkle of a cow bell to 
break the heavy solitude. Sky and earth were gray 
and lifeless. 

“ Oh, Leta, I haven’t told you yet what I was 
laughing at in the algebra class.” Ardena straight- 
ened up a moment, cramped from her bent position. 
“ When Mr. Jackson was assigning the algebra 


52 


DENA 


problems didn’t you hear him say to George King, 
‘ George, the third ’ ? So now we’ve been calling 
George, * King George III.’ Don’t you think it’s a 
pretty good joke? I saw the joke right away and I 
wanted to whisper it to you, but old Jacky glowered 
at me so from under his shaggy eyebrows that I was 
afraid to. I just can’t like him very well. And it 
seems to me that he’s been unusually grouchy lately. 
Haven’t you noticed it? And his scowl and his 
bristling hair and his shaggy eyebrows make me al- 
most afraid of him. I’m glad Miss Miller is so 
different,” concluded Ardena. 

“ I don’t like him very well, either,” Leta con- 
fessed. “ His voice is so deep down in his throat 
he fairly makes me jump. I sometimes almost get 
creepy with fright when he comes and draws the 
crayon through my problem and says, ‘ Mish Lin- 
shey, you may write out the formula on page eighty- 
sish.’ ” 

Ardena laughed until she held her sides for 
breath, one peal of merriment after the other echo- 
ing through the still woods. “ But you don’t look 
scared one bit. When I see him coming I turn back 
to the answer real quick so as to be sure I’ll know it 
when I get it and I hurry right along. I wish he 
could see the beautiful May basket we are going to 


THE FIRST OF MAY 


53 


give Miss Miller. Come on, Leta, we have more 
than enough now. And I’ve got to hurry home to 
get supper.” 

The evening was dark and misty and muddy. 
Holding an umbrella in one hand and a folded sheet 
of paper in the other Ardena ran down the wet 
boardwalk, across the muddy corner and up the main 
street to a large well-lighted house set back in a big 
yard. She went around to the back door where 
Leta, by the light within, was outlined in the door- 
way. 

“ I heard you coming,” she called as she followed 
Ardena into the immaculate kitchen with the wooden 
clock ticking on the shelf. It was such a large, con- 
venient, sanitary kitchen that Ardena was always 
held spellbound by its very shiningness and up-to- 
dateness. She <lid wish that her kitchen — “ See, 

isn’t it pretty ! ” Leta had led her to a kitchen table 
with a glistening sanitary table top and had picked 
up a basket. “ I put the flowers outdoors when I 
came home and they’re so crisp and fresh; and see 
how dainty the ribbon looks ! I’ve tied it in all sorts 
of loops and bows, it was so long and narrow. 
White went the prettiest with purple. And isn’t it 
the dearest basket — blue and lavender? See how 
long the handle is. It will hang on to the door knob 


54 


DENA 


easily. But do read the poetry quick. Eve been so 
anxious to hear it.” 

“ Here it is. You tie it on and I’ll say it. I 
know it.” And while Leta punched a hole in the 
corner of the sheet of paper and strung a loop of the 
ribbon through, Ardena repeated the verse: 

“ Where the trees their shadows cast, 

Where the bird moves swift and fast, 

Where the brooks o’er pebbles flow, 

Where the squirrel runs to and fro, 

Where the breeze sings slow and soft, 

Where the branches toss aloft, 

Where the vines round tree trunks cling, 

Where the robins merriest sing, 

Where the plants grow fresh and green, 

Where the violets hide between, 

From there come we 
To thee.” 

Leta’s serene face was all wonder and admiration. 
“ It’s perfectly beautiful, Ardena! How could you 
ever do it? Why, it sounds just like Miss Miller. 
It goes along sort of soft and smooth like ‘ Elaine.’ ” 
Leta gave a little satisfied pat to the bow of ribbon. 
“ Don’t you really hope she’ll recognize your hand- 
writing? Wait a moment until I get my coat and 
cap. And I suppose I’ll need my rubbers and um- 
brella for it seems to be raining pretty hard,” she 


THE FIRST OF MAY 


55 

called back, as the door leading into the dining room 
swung back after her. 

But when Leta returned again to the kitchen she 
returned as she had gone except for a very different 
expression. She was followed by Mrs. Lindsey, a 
practical and solicitous mother. 

“ I think Leta had better not go,” she said to Ar- 
dena. “ It’s starting to rain harder and she’d better 
stay at home. Why don’t you wait until to-morrow 
night, Ardena ? ” 

Ardena always felt shy and restrained before Mrs. 
Lindsey. Yet she managed to say this time in timid 
self-defense, “ But this is May-basket night. I can 
take the basket on over myself, though. I’m wet 
already,” surveying her damp shoes and skirt. 

u Well, Ardena,” said Mrs. Lindsey, probably 
with more common sense than tact, “ you had far 
better be home taking care of the house and your 
brothers than wading around in the rain and mud 
on such a very silly errand. I should think your 
father would be more strict with you children.” 

Ardena’s face reddened. She almost gave ex- 
pression to the burst of wrath that surged up within 
her. But she managed to gain control of herself 
even if she did feel hot and damp and miserable and 
to say apologetically, “ But I wanted to do some- 


DENA 


56 

thing for Miss Miller. She’s been very nice to me 
and — and I thought this a good chance to do — 
something nice for her. If you’ll give me the bas- 
ket, Leta, I’ll take it on over.” 

Outside there was a steady downpour of rain. 
Leta followed Ardena out on the porch to express 
her regret at not being able to go with her and to 
give Ardena minute directions about finding the 
place. But Ardena’s brain was in too much of a 
whirl to keep anything straight. She was glad that 
it was cool outside and she really rather liked the 
rain. Hurrying on down the street, holding the 
basket carefully in one hand and trying to steady 
the umbrella with the other, she began to feel hap- 
pier. Ardena liked adventure and here was a 
chance. It was very dark and shiny and slippery 
and she hurried on down the street as rapidly as she 
could. She had to pass through the empty down- 
town streets and then go on to the opposite side of 
the town. 

It rained and rained and rained. Ardena was 
quite soaked. Her rubbers leaked and her shoes 
became wet and soggy and her coat was damp. The 
umbrella grew heavy. But buoyed up by the 
thought of the pleasure her errand would bring to 
Miss Miller she kept steadily on. She was in an un- 


THE FIRST OF MAY 


57 


familiar part of the town now and she was a bit 
confused. But she knew that she was on the right 
street ; and that she must soon come to two houses — 
exactly alike — in the middle of the block up a very 
high bank. Miss Miller roomed in the first house 
and Mr. Jackson in the second. Yes, Miss Miller 
was in the first house. Or was it the second ? No ; 
it was the first, she was sure. But she wasn’t sure, 
either. She really wasn’t very sure of anything ex- 
cept that her feet were very wet and the umbrella 
very heavy and that her head felt hot and was ach- 
ing very badly. Was it the first or the second 
house? She wished that she had listened more at- 
tentively to Leta. Or that she had put Miss Miller’s 
name on the basket. Why, they had forgotten all 
about putting Miss Miller’s name on the basket! 
But maybe Miss Miller would recognize her hand- 
writing. But if she did, then half the fun of 
hanging May-baskets was gone. She wished that 
her throat wasn’t so dry and that she didn’t have 
to swallow so high. 

Ardena finally reached the long flight of steps that 
led up to the house. It still rained — that persist- 
ent, monotonous fall. That was a long flight of 
steps — a very long flight — a flight so long that it 
made Ardena tired to think about climbing them. 


58 


DENA 


But growing excited again in the thought of this, 
the most thrilling part of the adventure, which was 
already upon her, she began to mount the steps cau- 
tiously, her shoes sinking down into puddles of 
water collected in the center of each of those very 
many steps. 

She was soon up in the yard and was taking her 
bearings. Before her was a large house with a long 
porch across the front and more steps up to that 
porch. The front door was a Colonial door with a 
knocker and a row of little window panes across the 
top. A rose colored light was shining through this 
row of window panes and also from beneath the 
lowered shade of the front window. 

Ardena tiptoed up the cement walk to the house 
and up the steps to the porch. Her adventure was 
fast approaching the thrilling climax. Could she 
hang the basket on that door, lift that knocker and 
jump down from that porch without being caught? 

The porch creaked with a big crack as she stepped 
upon it. She waited. Yes, she believed that she 
could easily fasten the basket to that door knob, lift 
that knocker and get safely away without being 
caught. She closed the umbrella and then waited 
again. She approached the door. Involuntarily 
she glanced through the lower row of small win- 


THE FIRST OF MAY 


59 


dow panes that came just within her range of vision. 
But with a gasp Ardena fell back from her strained 
position. She forgot to hang the May-basket — she 
forgot all about the May-basket in her hand. Then 
Ardena looked again — to be sure. There was a big 
grate and a glowing fire and a settee drawn up be- 
fore the fire. And sitting on that settee were Miss 
Miller — and MR. JACKSON. 

Ardena’s footsteps must have attracted their at- 
tention for both glanced over at the door. Ardena 
was recalled to herself with a flash. With one quick 
thoughtless movement she fastened the basket to 
the door knob, lifted the knocker and scurried off the 
porch. 

The next day Ardena remained at home from 
school with a cold and sore throat. She prepared 
the breakfast and helped her father and the boys get 
off and then dropped down on the sitting room 
lounge. Mrs. Shute came over with salve and flan- 
nels and hot lemonade and good advice and a de- 
served reprimand for such carelessness. By even- 
ing she was feeling better. After four Leta came 
in. 

“ Ardena,” she asked at once, “ who did you 
hang that May-basket for — Miss Miller or Mr. 
Jackson? ” 


6o 


DENA 


“ Im sure I don’t know,” Ardena truthfully an- 
swered. 

“ Well,” pondered Leta, “ it’s queer, anyway. In 
algebra class this morning Mr. Jackson wore a small 
buttonhole bouquet of violets tied with a piece of 
white ribbon and in English Miss Miller wore a big 
bouquet of violet in her belt tied with lots of white 
ribbon. And, Ardena, truly I couldn’t tell which 
looked the happier of the two. Mr. Jackson was 
sweet as sugar and even joked and laughed with us 
in class. Why, I’m beginning to think that I’m go- 
ing to like him when I know him better. As for 
Miss Miller — well, she honestly never did look so 
perfectly charming — a new blue dress — and those 
flowers at her belt. And she smiled at us every min- 
ute and read to us the most of the hour. It’s queer, 
isn’t it?” 

And Ardena agreed that it was. 


CHAPTER V 


THE FOURTH OF JULY 

In June the first year of Ardena’s high school life 
came to a close. And considering the many things 
that one had to consider in estimating Ardena’s life 
it was a very successful close, for Ardena’s grades 
were such as to give her ample exemption from the 
final examinations. Then, also, in June Ardena was 
fifteen. She was tall now, slender but wiry, and 
more sober and dependable than at fourteen. Aunt 
Lib often praised her and grandmother charitably 
found little fault. At fourteen Ardena could hang 
May-baskets with considerable of the excitement of 
childhood but at fifteen with a long, hot, busy sum- 
mer stretching before her she realized that she felt 
sober and dependable. Another sultry Iowa sum- 
mer was upon them. There was much to do and she 
tried to maintain the steady, stick-at-it spirit which 
keeps housework in an adequate state of prepared- 
ness for any and all emergencies. 

But there were many stumbling blocks along the 
61 


62 


DENA 


path that led to the goal of Ardena’s good intentions. 

For the third time, on one hot July afternoon, Mr. 
Marsh appeared in the bedroom doorway, his sparse 
hair rumpled and his face red from the exertion of 
putting on a stiff-bosomed white shirt. “ Ardena,” 
he called in nervous exasperation, “ I never did see 
the equal of these shirts. The first one I put on had 
the sleeve half torn out and the next one was too big 
in the neck and here this, my last and my best one, 
has two buttons missing.” 

Ardena, packing a shrunken old valise stretched 
out on the bumpy carpet lounge, glanced up at the 
coatless, shoeless, incensed figure in the doorway 
and her eyes kindled in amusement. 

Mr. Marsh’s irritability was strengthened. “ Ar- 
dena,” he said with decision, “ I should think you 
would be more systematic and look ahead a little. 
Any girl who has passed her fifteenth birthday and 
will be a sophomore in the high school next year 
should have acquired more stability of character. 

When a button is off a garment, sew another one 

>> 

on. 

Ardena’s smile ended in an uncontrollable fit of 
laughter as she caught the sense of the argument and 
noted anew her vexed and excited father. “ I can’t 
help it,” she tried to apologize. 


THE FOURTH OF JULY 63 

Still grasping the offending shirt Mr. Marsh 
looked over at her. “ Ardena,” he remarked with 
dignity, “ I do think you are cultivating an unpleas- 
antly loud and harsh voice for a woman. I believe 
with Shakespeare as regards a woman’s voice.” 

Ardena made a final struggle and gained control 
of herself. “ Give the shirt to me, father, and I’ll 
fix it in a minute. Your valise is about ready. 
You’ll have to hurry to catch the two-twenty train.” 

“ Yes, yes,” Mr. Marsh conceded, his thoughts 
turned into another channel, “ I know I must. 
Now, sew the buttons on strong and wind the thread 
around them,” and the bedroom door closed again. 

Some fifteen minutes later Mr. Marsh, in his best 
black suit, issued from the bedroom and hastily 
grasped the valise and umbrella Ardena had ready 
for him. “ I’ll be home the day after the Fourth. 
I wish I had had more time to plan my trip, but the 
telegram was urgent and if I stand a chance of get- 
ting that printing contract I must go at once. This 
is a very opportune time since the governor is 
billed to speak there the Fourth, and of course I shall 
stay for the speech.” 

“ Say, dad — ” Alonzo had sidled forward from 
the out-of-the-way location of the kitchen doorway. 
“ Say, dad,” he began again, “ it doesn’t look like 


6 4 


DENA 


we’re going to have much of a Fourth. I gave you 
my last paper money to help pay for my suit and we 
haven’t got a cent now.” 

Mr. Marsh glanced down at the sober-faced 
Alonzo before him, looked at him again and then set 
the valise and umbrella on a chair and nervously 
drew forth a limp worn purse and opened it. “ I 
am sorry — very sorry — but I can’t spare more 
than a dime, Alonzo. This sudden departure is 
cramping me and this is all the loose change I have. 
I must hurry,” he continued as he replaced the purse 
and pulled out a big nickel watch. “ I’m late now. 
Spend the dime and I’ll tell you about the speech 
when I come back. Next Fourth we’ll do better,” 
and Mr. Marsh hastily kissed Ardena and Alonzo. 
After a farewell with William T. who, black of face 
and hands, emerged from the back yard at the last 
moment, he hurried down the hot, dusty street. 

William T. returned again to the pleasures of 
mud pies and Budge’s company, Alonzo disappeared 
in the kitchen and Ardena went upstairs to change 
her dress. When she came down a half hour later 
in a blue gingham, she saw Leta, immaculate in a 
white linen Peter Thompson and protected from the 
glaring sun by a changeable silk parasol, coming up 
the walk. 


65 


THE FOURTH OF JULY 

“ I stopped for you to go downtown with me/’ 
Leta said, as Ardena threw open the screen door at 
her approach. “ I have to take my library book 
back and do some errands. Can you go ? ” 

“ Yes, I’d like to,” Ardena answered joyfully, and 
she picked up a crumpled hat from the machine and 
pinned it carelessly on her fluffy hair. “ I only have 
to get some sugar,” she continued, as she later shared 
the half of the changeable silk parasol while walking 
down the street, “ but this’ll be a good chance to 
show you the hat maybe I’m going to buy. It was 
just put in the window yesterday. It’s be-a-u-ti- 
ful ! ” 

Some blocks farther down the dusty main street 
with its noisy rattling of farm wagons and grocery 
carts Ardena excitedly touched the starchy sleeve of 
Leta’s white linen. “ Here it is,” she whispered as 
they stopped before Mrs. Muldoon’s show window, 
gaudily brilliant in the July sun. “ It’s the one on 
the tallest spindle — right there.” Then she waited 
while Leta’s critical eye scanned the gracefully 
drooping brim — the brim that had just the four 
droops to it, the correctly (if somewhat stiffly) 
poised wreath of wonderfully pink roses and the 
three loops of black velvet that a shining buckle so 
tightly secured. 


66 


DENA 


“ Leta, don’t you think it’s the prettiest — the 
very most beau-ti-ful hat that you ever — ever saw ? 
Do — don’t you think I would look — well, that it 
would be becoming to me ? ” 

From the gaudy show-window Leta’s deliberate 
gaze turned to Ardena, to the flattened, faded brown 
hat about which the red hair kinked and curled. 
“ Mother says,” (Leta was indirectly making known 
her own opinion) “ that plainer hats are more serv- 
iceable for all occasions. But,” unconsciously 
glancing up at Ardena’s rather nondescript head- 
gear, “ I think it will be more becoming than the 
one you have on. But, of course, I can’t tell ex- 
actly until I see it on you. Let’s go in and try it 
on.” 

“ Oh,” Ardena was rather startled by the sud- 
denness of the proposition, “ I — I hadn’t thought 
about trying it on. I’m not quite ready to buy it yet. 
And this — this old one feels real comfortable. 
Then — then, isn’t July a little too early for Leg- 
horns ? ” 

“ Why, no indeed,” Leta was fully confident on 
this subject, “ I had one as early as May once. 
Come on and we’ll go in and see how it looks on 
you.” 

Ardena’s face clouded dubiously. “ No, Leta, I 


THE FOURTH OF JULY 67 

think we’d better not. You see I’m not ready to buy 
just yet and — and — ” 

But in some matters Leta’s gentle spirit could 
assume a leading part. “ It won’t hurt to go in and 
see about it. We don’t do our trading here, but I 
guess the place is all right. I’ll do the talking.” 
Leta’s changeable silk parasol collapsed with a click 
and she led the way into the store. 

Mrs. Muldoon, who soon appeared from behind 
a curtain at the rear of the store, was a complacent, 
easy-going individual quickly manifesting signs of 
being anxious to make a sale at this dull season of 
the year. 

“ It will do very well,” was Leta’s final decision 
as she viewed the hat adorning the otherwise some- 
what shabby-looking Ardena. “ Maybe you’d bet- 
ter decide to take it right along with you. It might 
be gone if you waited.” 

But the light in Ardena’s eyes was dying out. 
She recalled the price of the hat — an inaccessible 
four dollars. “ I haven’t really made up my mind 
yet — and — and my old one feels real comfortable 
and — and isn’t it a little early for Leghorns? 
Then — then maybe I’d better wait until grand- 
mother or Aunt Lib can get in to see it.” 

From this confused and muddled state of affairs 


68 


DENA 


Ardena was rescued by the more diplomatic Leta. 
“We didn’t expect to buy a hat,” she was calmly ex- 
plaining to the urgent Mrs. Muldoon, “ when we 
started downtown this afternoon. But,” in the 
manner of a suggestion, “ maybe you could lay the 
hat aside and Ardena could get it next time she came 
down.” 

“ Never mind about the money,” offered the mag- 
nanimous Mrs. Muldoon. “ It is late in the season 
and I make allowances. She can take the hat along 
and stop in to settle for it when she finds it con- 
venient.” 

Ardena, her eyes again drawn to the hat poised on 
the tips of Mrs. Muldoon’s fingers, to its droops and 
its loops and its shining newness, hesitated, pon- 
dered and grew persuaded. “ I’ve saved three dol- 
lars for a new hat,” she burst into confidence. 
“ And my father’ll give me the other dollar when he 
comes home from Mapleton.” And then Mrs. Mul- 
doon becoming quite pressing in the extension of 
her credit Ardena finally consented. 

And so a few minutes later Ardena, with the 
crackling paper bundle carefully clasped in her hot 
tense fingers, shared the half of the changeable silk 
parasol back down the street to the grocery store. 
Later, after parting with Leta at the church corner. 


69 


THE FOURTH OF JULY 

she hurried along the side street. Approaching 
Mrs. Shute’s little white cottage sheltered behind a 
screen of bushes and flowers and vines, Ardena soft- 
ened the clicking of her heels on the boardwalk and 
was glad that only the knot of Mrs. Shute’s hair was 
visible above the gooseberry bush as she leaned over 
her pansy bed. And the soles of Mr. Shute’s carpet 
slippers appearing through the lilac bush as his feet 
rested on the porch railing were an indicator of an 
overcoming drowsiness. 

Ardena turned in at the bare, sunburned old house 
next door and went around the dry, withered yard to 
the back steps. The voices of Alonzo and William 
T. came from the woodshed, so Ardena hurried 
through the kitchen, depositing the sack of sugar on 
the table, and went up the uncarpeted stairs. Back 
under the bed in one of the low-walled rooms, away 
back to the corner where the rag carpet did not 
stretch, she pushed the bulky, unwieldy bundle. 
Her grandmother had told her that credit was next 
to stealing. She wondered if she really should have 
brought the hat home. Maybe she had better have 
waited until she had asked grandmother or Aunt 
Lib or Mrs. Shute about it. But if she had waited 
she might have lost it altogether. She meant to ex- 
plain the whole thing to her father when he came 


70 


DENA 


home. And even he had noticed that she needed a 
new hat. Really, one must learn to take advantage 
of an opportunity. So, light-hearted again, she 
went down to the kitchen and catching up the empty 
chip basket ran on out to the woodshed. In the 
doorway she stopped short. 

“ Alonzo Marsh, what are you up to now ! ” On 
the floor of the dark loose-boarded shed were a tub 
of water, a litter of all shapes and sizes of bottles, 
Alonzo and William T. 

Alonzo let the water bubble from a bottle and then 
looked up while his freckled face broke into a broad, 
eager smile. “ Ardena, Eve got a scheme/’ he com- 
menced confidentially. “ I’m — ” 

“ Oh, Alonzo ! what now ! Oh, do take more care 
of William T ! ” Ardena let the chip basket fall 
and pulled the splashing William T. away from the 
tub. “ Alonzo, you must be more careful. See 
how soaked he is.” 

“ I am careful,” Alonzo assured her, as he took 
the dripping bottle, wiped it and stood it on end by 
the wall. “ See, that’s the twenty-third bottle. 
Don’t they look nice and shiny? ” Alonzo straight- 
ened himself to gaze with admiration upon the va- 
ried row of bottles lengthening along the dusky side 
of the shed. 


7 1 


THE FOURTH OF JULY 

“ But what are you going to do with all these bot- 
tles? Alonzo, while father was gone I did hope you 
wouldn’t get into anything.” 

“ I’m not in anything. Did you know, Ardena, 
that we’re going to have the blazingest Fourth of 
July you ever saw. I’m going to sell these bottles 
for two dollars, or maybe more, and get some fire- 
works.” 

“ But you can’t sell those bottles.” 

“ Yes, I can too. I saw all those bottles down 
cellar going to waste, so I asked Herb Smiley in at 
Sailor’s drug store if they ever bought old bottles 
back and he said, * Sure thing,’ and, when I asked 
him for how much, he said, ‘ Couldn’t tell till he saw 
the cargo.’ Isn’t this a dandy pile? Doc Stubbs 
gave me those in that basket and Mrs. Shute those in 
that box and I found those green ones downtown in 
the alleys. Then to-morrow I’m going over to Pet- 
ersons’ and Buschbaums’ and some of the other 
neighbors and I’ll bet I make as much as two dollars 
anyway. Might possibly get three dollars for the 
whole lot, but I guess I’d better count on two.” 

Although a bit dubious about the outcome of this 
venture Ardena was reluctant to do or say anything 
that would dampen Alonzo’s enthusiasm and op- 
timism. At any rate he might be able to sell some 


72 


DENA 


of them and this amount added to the ten cents 
would make a small Fourth for the boys. 

“ But the Fourth is day after to-morrow, Alonzo,” 
she said. “ Do you think you will have time to get 
the bottles together and washed and in shape? ” 

Alonzo instantly became businesslike. His 
freckled face, under the tumbled damp hair, grew 
dubious and he frowned in sober thought. “ It’ll 
make me hustle,” he admitted, shaking a bottle half- 
full of water, the drops sprinkling his blue calico 
waist in a soaking spray. 

“ Well, I’ll help you,” Ardena offered. “ There 
won’t even be a torpedo going off around here and 
things will be pretty quiet.” 

“We can have a Fourth all right now,” Alonzo 
answered with enthusiasm rising again. “ I’m go- 
ing to get some firecrackers and some repeaters and 
some red light and some Roman candles and maybe 
a balloon and some flags, sure, to nail up on the front 
of the house. , Say,” looking up suddenly at his sis- 
ter, “ but I’m ashamed that we haven’t had a good 
big flag before this. I’ve told dad that I thought 
we ought to have one and he’s said he’d try to keep 
it in mind. Suppose we get the flag first — and a 
good big one, too — one like the Slocums’ ; one big 
enough to make us feel real patriotic.” 


73 


THE FOURTH OF JULY 

All that evening, until the thickening dusk filled 
the low, roughly-built room of the shed the three 
worked together. Alonzo washed the bottles, Ar- 
dena polished them and William T., with infinite 
patience, ranged them in even rows along the 
wall. 

“ Don’t they shine ! ” Alonzo exclaimed proudly, 
as he stopped a moment to gaze upon the wealth and 
splendor of his collection. “ There’s eighty-seven 
not counting that broken one and I’ll bet I get as 
many to-morrow. I’ve got to get up early and go 
to work because I must get started with the load 
right after dinner, if I’m going to get all of them 
sold by night. Set the alarm clock, Ardena, and 
let’s get up at five, will you ? ” 

But it was six instead of five the next morning 
when Ardena hurried down the stairs. The rusty 
old alarm clock had failed to sound. Later, when 
Alonzo came running into the kitchen, Ardena was 
toasting bread. 

“ Breakfast ready, Ardena? That old clock isn’t 
worth a cent. I thought I fixed it good, too. I’ll 
eat and hurry over for those other bottles and get 
back as soon as I can and get them washed. I 
haven’t got much time to waste,” he concluded, as 
he sank his face in a wash basin of cold water. 


74 


DENA 


“ Oh, Alonzo,” Ardena at the stove let the bread 
she was toasting sink until it blackened, “ I’ve 
planned out so many things, too ! I’m going to send 
out word by Ike Martin to tell Aunt Lib and Uncle 
Logan to come in. Aunt Lib said Saturday when 
they were in that they weren’t going over to Inde- 
pendence for the celebration. It was too far to take 
the children. Now won’t that be fine! ” 

But Alonzo, with only a brief nod of approval, 
was eating his dish of oatmeal and a dry piece of 
toast before departing on his morning’s errands. 
When he was gone Ardena gave the third call to 
William T. from the foot of the stairway and came 
back to the lumpy oatmeal and the burnt toast. 

It was about eleven o’clock that a distant, jerky, 
tuneless whistle caused William T. to dart down the 
street in a stumbling, frantic rush to help trundle 
the red wagon around the yard to the back door. 
Ardena greeted them from the kitchen doorway as 
she wiped her wet hands on her gingham apron. 

“ Did you get them ? Oh, what a dandy big lot ! 
I’ll come right out and help you. I’m going to 
bake a cake this afternoon,” she hurried on, her 
words tumbling over one another in her haste. 
“ And I saw Ike just as he was starting out and he 
said he’d be sure to give the note to Aunt Lib. 


THE FOURTH OF JULY 75 

Leta’s going over to Independence for the day, but 
we’ll have just as much fun as — ” 

“ I’ve got fifty-two here and every one needs 
washing,” Alonzo was already busy carrying bot- 
tles from the wagon to the shed. “ They’ll sell bet- 
ter if they’re clean. Lenny Slocum said that Gilson 
and Adams had their window chuck full of fireworks 
this morning. You can get two bunches of little 
firecrackers for a nickel or one big one. And Lenny 
said that he never heard the repeaters go off as loud 
as they do this year. He shot one off for me. 
Jiminy, but I jumped! ” Nervous with excitement, 
his eyes shining and his mouth twitching, he began 
rolling up the sleeves of his waist. “ And, Ardena,” 
he presently called back from the interior of the 
shed, “ they’ve got some canes in — ten cents apiece. 
I’ll get one for William T. so that he can’t get hurt. 
The Billings twins have one apiece. And Perky 
Thompson’s going to carry my papers to-night for 
two bunches of firecrackers.” 

It was not until two o’clock that everything was 
in readiness. Then Alonzo with his face glistening 
from a recent scrub and his hair falling from below 
his straw hat in damp rings carefully pulled the rat- 
tling, swaying wagon out to the dusty sidewalk and 
down the street, William T. at his side. 


76 


DENA 


“ Good luck,” Ardena called from the doorway 
and then went back to the scorching kitchen and the 
half-completed cake. By four o’clock the kitchen 
floor was scrubbed and a cocoanut cake was dripping 
its snowy frosting down the side of the pan as it 
stood on the shining oilcloth of the kitchen table. 
Ardena, up in the close, hot little room under the 
sloping roof, was fastening the collar of a shrunken 
gingham dress. Then from beneath the bed she 
carefully drew out the paper bundle and unpinned 
the crackling paper. She had almost forgotten, in 
the excitement of the morning, what it looked like. 
But it was all there as she remembered it — the loops 
and the droops and the pink roses and the shining 
buckle. With delicate care she lifted the hat by the 
edge of the brim and set it on her head. The 
cracked little mirror above the high battered bureau 
was true to her anticipation. The hat was beautiful 
and — yes — it even made her beautiful. Never in 
all her life had her apparel been selected because of 
its beauty. She was used to things that lasted — 
and then could be made over. With hesitating care 
she finally started a hatpin into the sleek and shin- 
ing crown, but the crackling of the straw seemed so 
loud she feared to spoil the absolute newness of it all 
and so she drew the pin carefully out again and tak- 


THE FOURTH OF JULY 77 

ing off the hat laid it gently down on the patchwork 
quilt of the bed. The money — the three dollars — 
was in a little box in the corner of the upper bureau 
drawer and Ardena took it from its hiding-place. 
There was the dollar her father had given her for 
her birthday and a dollar that grandmother had 
given her and another dollar in small change that 
she had saved from time to time. Just one more 
dollar when her father came home and the hat would 
be hers ! Her grandmother might question the du- 
rability of such a hat, but Ardena was going to prom- 
ise to wear it only for very best. Even if it wasn’t 
paid for, it soon would be and she believed that it 
would be all right to wear it on the Fourth with her 
best white dress. Ardena jubilantly caught up the 
hat again. Its newness and freshness charmed her 
and she must try it on once more. 

Knowing that the boys would be hungry and re- 
membering that the fireworks were to be purchased 
that evening Ardena made preparations for an early 
supper. The creamed potatoes and the scrambled 
eggs and the apple sauce were ready by half-past five 
o’clock, but Alonzo and William T. had not arrived. 
At six o’clock the supper was still warm, but by half- 
past six it had grown dry and cold on the back of the 
stove. It was nearly seven when Ardena heard the 


78 


DENA 


boys returning. The evening sun, from between the 
trunks of the maples, shone full upon the table cov- 
ered with the red tablecloth and set with the three 
plates. The tea kettle hummed on the back of the 
stove and the flies buzzed outside. 

Ardena hurried to the yard and helped Alonzo 
draw the wagon full of swaying, glisten 1 ' ng bottles 
to the woodshed. Hot and tired and covered with 
dust Alonzo drew one foot after the other up the 
back steps to the kitchen and Ardena helped William 
T., lagging in the rear, to the house. Alonzo sank 
into his place at the table, William T. silently climbed 
to his high chair and Ardena served them. She had 
forgotten that she herself had not eaten and that the 
customary washing of hands and faces, doubly 
needed upon this occasion, had been omitted. 

“ Alonzo, why couldn’t you sell them?” she 
finally got up courage enough to ask, as she came up 
from the cellar with a pitcher of lemonade. 

Alonzo set his half drained glass of lemonade 
down and frowned. “ Mr. Sailor said Herb didn’t 
know what he was talking about — he’s always fool- 
ing. They never bought old bottles back. Any 
more potatoes? ” 

“ But didn’t you try other places? ” 

“ Yes, I did. Went to all four drug stores and a 


THE FOURTH OF JULY 79 

couple of grocery stores and the vinegar works and 
the brewery. This all the lemonade? Tastes 
good.” 

“ We — we went all over town.” William T. 
seemed to wake up as Ardena placed the dishes on 
the table. “ My feet got hot and I didn’t get any 
ride home. All the bottles took the room.” 

“ Wouldn’t care,” Alonzo winced, “ if I hadn’t 
invited Perky Thompson and Lenny Slocum over 
and told them what I was going to have,” and 
Alonzo again gave his attention to his plate and glass 
of lukewarm lemonade. 

Alonzo and William T. ate in silence and Ardena 
sat by the kitchen window, silent also. It was dusk 
when Alonzo drained the last glass of lemonade and 
slid down from his chair, William T. following. A 
little later they went off upstairs to bed, but not until 
Ardena had tactfully enticed them into washing off 
some of the dust with which they were covered. 
When they were gone and Ardena was left alone to 
think it all over, her cheeks began to glow with an 
angry flush. Out there by the doorstep the wagon- 
load of bottles glistened in the thickening darkness. 
On the floor above sounded a few faint footfalls and 
then there was silence. Ardena jumped to her feet, 
her lips straight, her eyes bright. Lighting a lamp 


8o 


DENA 


she opened the door and went softly up the stairs. 
Up in her own room she set the lamp on the bureau 
and from beneath the bed drew forth the paper bun- 
dle and placed it on the bed. Then she opened the 
bureau drawer, took the money from the box and 
tied it in her handkerchief. She would manage 
things herself. She didn’t look at the hat again — 
she didn’t want to. It only emphasized, by contrast, 
the poverty that surrounded them. Never, never 
— never in their lives had they had a Fourth of July 
celebration; they had never had a Christmas, nor 
even a Thanksgiving. Poor, poor, poor ! Her 
cheeks glowed, her eyes burned. Grandmother or 
Aunt Lib had given them their good times — all 
they had known. And now had been their own 
chance to make the good time. They were too poor 
to go and buy the celebration outright and so Alonzo 
had schemed and planned and worked — all for 
nothing. Leta had everything — money and pretty 
dresses and a good time. And Lenny Slocum had 
everything that a boy of his age needed for his best 
development. As for Budge Cracker — the tears 
came into her eyes — he had enough for two small 
boys. Poverty — how she hated it! It met her 
now in the long, tired breathing of the children in 
the next room, in the recollection of the glistening 


THE FOURTH OF JULY 81 

bottles in the yard below, it surrounded her in her 
own low, bare, little room, it confronted her in the 
paper bundle on the frayed patchwork quilt. She 
could stand it, — but they couldn’t and they 
shouldn’t. At least they could afford to be patri- 
otic — yes, just as well as the Lindseys and the Slo- 
cums and the Crackers. It was her very duty to her 
country and her God to teach her brothers patriot- 
ism. She squeezed the handkerchief, heavy with 
the three dollars, tight in her hand, grabbed with an 
angry clutch at the paper bundle, picked up the lamp 
and descended the stairs. 

The sky was heavy with the fullness of the stars 
and the street lamp on the corner was spreading lacy 
shadows along the sidewalk when Ardena, on her 
way home, passed Mrs. Shute’s vine-covered picket 
fence, her arms heaped with bundles. 

“ My land, Ardena, what all are you bringing 
home this time of night? ” 

“ Oh,” Ardena started, “ I didn’t see you, Mrs. 
Shute!” 

“ Well, here I am anyway.” Mrs. Shute leaned 
over the fence, her face, in the light from the street 
lamp, bright and interested. “ Ebenezer’s just gone 
off to bed, but it was so hot I was wandering around 
in the yard a little to cool off. I saw you going 


82 


DENA 


downtown about dark with a bundle considerable 
like a hat bundle. What all have you got there ? ” 

“ Fireworks,” Ardena answered, with a note of 
defiance in her voice and manner. 

“ Well, I do hope you’ll take them out as far as 
Hill’s pasture to shoot them off. You’ve got enough 
there for the whole neighborhood.” Mrs. Shute’s 
voice was showing considerable concern. “ But 
these bundles aren’t like the one I saw you carrying 
downtown awhile ago,” she said, reverting again 
to a former topic. 

“ I took a new hat back and spent the three dollars 
in fireworks.” 

“ For goodness’ sake, Ardena Marsh, burning up 
good hard-earned dollars when you need a new hat 
about as much as anyone ever did! You’re big 
enough to be getting some sense.” 

Ardena stood up straight and tall, her arms tight- 
ening about the bundles. “ Mrs. Shute,” she cried 
excitedly, “ I can’t help it if you don’t like it — 
I’m not one bit ashamed of what I’ve done. I 
thought that we were too poor to have a Fourth like 
other folks, but I’ve decided that we are not. And 
I don’t intend to let the boys think we are, either. I 
can go without a hat, but we can’t afford to go with- 
out a flag. Why, I’d rather go all summer, and all 


THE FOURTH OF JULY 83 

winter, too, without a hat than to be disloyal to my 
country. Eve made up my mind that I’m neglect- 
ing my duty to my small brothers to let them grow 
up unpatriotic. Other children aren’t growing up 
that way. I don’t think it’s worthy of the descend- 
ants of a Revolutionary soldier.” 

Mrs. Shute recovered from her surprise. “ I like 
your way of looking at things, too. Money going 
up in fireworks never bothers me, but Ebenezer can’t 
ever see but straight ahead.” 

“ My ancestor fought in the Revolutionary War,” 
continued Ardena, “ and we’ve got his silver shoe- 
buckle yet, and he wouldn’t have much respect for 
one of his descendants who wouldn’t rather celebrate 
in his memory than have a new hat. He wouldn’t 
care if we were poor, but I believe he’d just hate a 
slacker in his line. And my own grandfather 
fought in the Civil War and my mother used to tell 
me how she cried all day long on the stair steps when 
Abraham Lincoln died.” 

Mrs. Shute folded her pointed elbows across her 
black and white calico, checked by the swinging 
shadows of the street lamp, and her thin, keen fea- 
tures softened with a beam of delight. “ I like your 
spunk, Ardena. But, by the way, Alonzo didn’t sell 
those bottles, did he ? ” 


8 4 


DENA 


Ardena’s face sank with a softened memory. 
“ He didn’t sell a one — not a one. And — and we 
had planned the celebration — and invited the folks. 
We were going to have you and Aunt Lib and Uncle 
Logan and grandmother and the children, and then 
Alonzo invited Lenny Slocum and Perky Thompson 
and we were going to have cake and lemonade and 
the fireworks. But we’re going to have the celebra- 
tion anyway,” Ardena ended with a little note of 
triumph in her voice. 

“ I was doubtful about his selling those bottles all 
along, but he seemed so anxious to try that I didn’t 
like to discourage him. But you go right on and 
get ready for the evening and I’ll come. And,” she 
whispered as she leaned over the top of the fence, 
“ I’ll bring the ice cream. Ebenezer’ll make a big 
stew about having the muss around, but he’ll help 
me out if I manage him right. He seems to be feel- 
ing real miserable this hot weather. I’ll bring the 
freezer chuck full to the gallon.” 

Ardena gave a little jump of delight. “ Oh, Mrs. 
Shute, you are so lovely! You, oh, you’re such a 
dear! If I hadn’t these bundles, I’d hug you. 
Alonzo and William T. will be wild with delight 
when I tell them.” 

Mrs. Shute straightened to her erect carriage. 


THE FOURTH OF JULY 


85 


“ But you children must let those big, dangerous fire- 
works alone until evening when we grown folks will 
be there, if you want me to help with the refresh- 
ments. Ever since your father has been gone, I’ve 
eaten and slept and worked with one ear open and 
all ready to run if I heard an alarm.” 

“ I promise,” Ardena said as she hurried on to- 
wards the shambling, slanting old house next door, 
her feet buoyed by the wings of anticipation and her 
face towards the door, radiant with the great secret. 

Very early the next morning the crackling of a 
bunch of small firecrackers brought two hot, sleepy- 
eyed boys to the little upstairs window. A series of 
snapping torpedoes brought two excited little fellows 
scurrying down the steep flight of stair steps. On 
the cleared-off sitting room table lay package upon 
package of red and white bundles. In one breath- 
less sentence Ardena tried to tell them all about it, 
omitting the return of the Leghorn hat and speaking 
casually of her slowly accumulated three dollars. 
She dwelt in glowing detail upon the celebration that 
was in store for them that evening. 

With a wild burst of overflowing joy Alonzo 
sought to express the emotions surging through him. 
He clapped his hands, he gave a whoop, he turned a 


86 


DENA 


handspring; and then he fled out the door and 
around the house with one wild hoot of happiness, 
his nightgown flapping about his bare, flying legs. 
William T., catching the mood, attempted an equally 
enthusiastic imitation of it all. Ardena sought to 
divert their minds from such rash manifestations of 
appreciation and so proposed, when properly 
clothed, that they assist in decorating the front of 
the house with the bunting and flags. 

Such material things as Leghorn hats were long 
since forgotten. 


CHAPTER VI 


IN HONOR OF WILLIAM THADDEUS 

July had been hotter than June, and August had 
been hotter than July. And the hottest day of all 
that hot summer was the last Sunday in August. 

Ardena, in limp blue calico, was attempting to 
smooth off with two half-warm irons a very much 
needed very thin dress. The kitchen was low and 
close so that even the slight fire seemed to add in- 
tensely to the heat. Ardena had pushed the irons 
to the back of the stove and was folding up the iron- 
ing-board when a squeak of new shoes on the door- 
step announced the home-coming of William T. 
Under the shining brim of the straw hat his round 
fat face gleamed red and perspiring and the white 
blouse waist hung wrinkled and wilted. 

“ Pm going to take off these old hot shoes. I 
wish’t they’d have barefooted Sunday schools,” he 
declared doggedly, as he seated himself on the floor. 

But Ardena was squeezing the ironing-board be- 
hind the door in the pantry. Later, when she came 
87 


88 


DENA 


up from the cellar with a pan of potatoes, William 
T., barefooted, was thoughtfully poking his stubby 
forefinger through a hole in the top of his hat. 

“ Oh, oh, William T. ! ” Ardena set the pan of 
potatoes on the table with a thump. “ Why, that’s 
your best hat! ” 

“ I don’t care,” William T. replied from the mid- 
dle of the floor, “ ’tisn’t as big as Budge’s, anyway.” 

Ardena hung the hat up on one of the many con- 
venient nails and peeled the potatoes — four big, 
dusty potatoes. Her hair tickled her face and neck, 
her nose itched and the perspiration rolled down her 
face. 

" Oh, dear,” she groaned in exasperation, “ I wish 
I didn’t have to cook on such a hot, hot day ! ” 
Then she built the fire in the cook stove again and 
filled the tea kettle out at the pump, pumping the 
water with angry, impatient pulls of the creaking 
handle. 

“ It’s getting meals the whole time,” she declared 
gloomily, as she wiped her hands on the kitchen 
towel. “ Now, William T.,” she directed, “ I’m 
going upstairs to get cleaned up. If anything boils 
over, come and call me. I’ll be down in a minute. 
Don’t go away and don’t get into anything.” 

Up in the little room under the sloping walls it 


IN HONOR OF WILLIAM THADDEUS 89 

was stuffily hot. Ardena brushed her hair back into 
a knot on her neck and put on the white dress, 
stretching her arms in a painful attempt to locate the 
buttons down the back. When she came down- 
stairs, the steam was rising from the potatoes on 
the stove. William T. sat in a round, silent little 
heap out on the doorstep. Ardena brought a fresh 
tablecloth from the pantry and spread it on the table. 

“ Say, Ardena, my birthday’s Tuesday, isn’t it? ” 
William T.’s fat cheeks were flattened against the 
rusty screen door. 

“ I guess it is,” Ardena responded absently, as she 
cut the bread. 

“ I’m six years old, ain’t I ? ” 

“ Yes,” Ardena’s voice came from the pantry. 
“ And plenty old enough to remember not to say 
‘ ain’t.’ ” 

“ When Budge was six years old, his mother in- 
vited the minister there to supper.” 

“ Is that so? You run and tell father dinner’s 
ready. He’s around at the side of the house, read- 
ing. And then go over to the Slocums’ and call 
Alonzo. Run along and dinner will be ready by the 
time you are back.” 

“ My, my, my, but this is hot weather ! ” Mr. 
Marsh, spare and nervous, closed the loose screen 


90 


DENA 


securely after him. “ It is amazing how hot weather 
does hold on. Where’s Alonzo and William T. ? 
Hot weather makes us as hungry as cold weather, 
too. That’s right — cold meat,” as he scanned the 
table. “ It’s too hot for you to stand over a stove 
and do much cooking to-day. Better manage to 
save yourself as much work as you can during this 
sultry spell.” 

A sudden rush on the doorstep, a wrench at the 
screen door and Alonzo followed by William T. 
came into the room. 

“ Oh, Alonzo, how dirty you look ! ” With 
frowning disapproval Ardena surveyed the hot, 
breathless, red-faced, tumbled-haired Alonzo before 
her. 

“ Yes, yes,” Mr. Marsh stopped his chair halfway 
in the slide to the table. “ I have meant to speak 
to you about being more careful of your appearance 
on Sundays, Alonzo. I’m going down to Doc 
Stubbs’s after dinner to read ‘ Dooley ’ with the 
doctor, but I want you to clean up and stay at home. 
Running about on Sundays is a bad habit to get into. 
You used to attend Sabbath school with regularity.” 

“ My foot isn’t quite well enough for my shoes 
yet,” Alonzo explained, as he assiduously flattened 
the bushiness of his hair with the palms of his hands. 


IN HONOR OF WILLIAM THADDEUS 91 

“ Budge and me — we go to Sunday school,” and 
William T. erected his knife and fork on the table- 
cloth anticipatory of the coming plateful. 

Mr. Marsh served, Ardena ran for the forgotten 
pepper and salt and Alonzo and William T. ate in 
silence. 

“ When Budge was six years old, his mother in- 
vited the minister there to supper.” William T. 
had forgotten the half-consumed beans and pota- 
toes. 

But Mr. Marsh was enjoying the comforts of 
white shirt sleeves and cold meat and plenty of 
leisure. Ardena had gone to the pantry for more 
bread and Alonzo applied himself to the plateful 
before him, carefully concealing the grimy palms of 
his hands in the process of manipulating his knife 
and fork. 

“ I like the minister,” William T.’s voice contin- 
ued pleasantly. “ He’s nice and Budge said when 
he was six years old his mother invited the minister 
over to supper. And Budge told me that we haven’t 
had the minister at our house yet. And — and — 
and he said, ‘ Why don’t you ever invite him to your 
house — why don’t you invite him on your birth- 
day? ’ and — and so I did.” 

Ardena set the glass of water, already halfway 


92 


DENA 


to her lips, back on the table again. “ William T., 
what are you talking about ? ” 

“ Budge said ’twas polite. He told me to tell the 
minister you told him to come ’cause that made it 
politer. Budge’s mother let him invite the minister 
himself and that’s how Budge knew how to do it. 
It’s my sixth birthday, too,” William T. doggedly 
defended himself. 

“But he won’t come?” Ardena questioned 
quickly. 

“ Yes, he will too,” William T. joyfully contra- 
dicted, his big eyes swelling round with earnestness. 
“ I asked him just like Budge told me to and he said 
delighted, he’d come.” 

With suspended fork Ardena looked speechlessly 
at William T., while Alonzo fell back in his chair 
in repeated snickers of amusement. Mr. Marsh 
glanced up, his mild gray eyes contracting in mirth. 
“ I’m afraid that you are fated to be hostess to the 
Reverend Doctor John Calvin Bell, Ardena.” 

“ Oh,” Ardena groaned, “ William T., I know 
you’re only fooling.” 

William T.’s round, serious eyes were in them- 
selves a complete contradiction. “ Budge wasn’t 
fooling. The minister came all right. He’s nice, 
too ; he says, 4 Delighted, I’ll come.’ ” 


IN HONOR OF WILLIAM THADDEUS 93 

Ardena, desperate, looked from the guilty Wil- 
liam T. to the snickering Alonzo, and then at her 
father in his enjoyment of a third cup of tea. 
“ Oh,” she burst out, “ but he’s Carlton’s father and 
he’s so dreadfully nice and particular and so — so 
imposing and so — oh, so cultured and scholarly ! 
I can’t endure it. Why, father, he’ll think we’re — 
we’re just regular heathens. I’ve always stood in 
awe of him. I can’t do it — I just can’t — can’t — 
can’t. I’ve never hardly dared to speak to him.” 

“ Jiminy, but I’ll bet I’ll skin! ” Alonzo was dig- 
ging the last slice of apple sauce from his dish. “ I 
hope he doesn’t forget his specks. When he doesn’t 
wear them he always looks as if he were hunting 
them.” 

“ Alonzo,” Mr. Marsh said rather sharply, as he 
turned his attention in that direction, “ I do not like 
the disrespectful manner in which you have been 
speaking of people lately and I do not like your 
careless table manners. We really need to have 
company once in awhile to help you mend your ways. 
If William T. has invited Mr. Bell, Ardena, and he 
has accepted, as seems to be the case, I see nothing 
to do but to extend the invitation ourselves and to 
accept the situation gracefully. Our accommoda- 
tions are not such just now as render entertaining a 


94 


DENA 


complete pleasure, and I would not have had the 
courage to ask Mr. Bell myself, but in the present 
circumstances it seems to me advisable to carry the 
supper through in the best way that we can.” 

Ardena’s face lengthened in hopeless resignation. 
“ I suppose I’ll have to. But these dreadful iron- 
stone dishes, the rag carpets and the one old rock- 
ing chair. I’ll die, if he doesn’t.” 

Mr. Marsh pushed his chair with deliberation 
from the table and brushed the crumbs from his vest. 
“ Do the best that you can, child. Some day we’ll 
have things more as we want them, I hope. I think 
I’ll go down to Doc Stubbs’s for a little while,” he 
said quietly as he rose. 

A little later, through the pantry window, Ardena 
saw her father going down the heat-whitened street, 
his shiny cutaway and old straw hat made prominent 
by the glaring sunlight. A feeling of rebellion 
against everything, but most particularly heat and 
poverty and weariness and small brothers, surged 
through her. 

“ Say, Dena,” William T. was swinging on the 
kitchen door, “I can go over to Budge’s, can’t I? 
His mother’s going to let us cut pictures and paste 
them in a book this afternoon.” 


IN HONOR OF WILLIAM THADDEUS 95 

“ You may go for a little while. But, oh, Wil- 
liam T., how could you — ” 

William T., in a short space of time, had noise- 
lessly opened the screen door, slipped out and dis- 
appeared. 

Ardena cleared the table, washed the dishes and 
swept the floor. When she had finished, she took a 
palm-leaf fan and went out on the back doorstep. 
She brushed the thick hair from her face, wiped the 
perspiration away and fanned. Beyond the shadow 
of the house, but a short distance away, stretched a 
yard of tangled, sunburned grass with a scrawny 
box-elder down by the fence. At the other side of 
the lopsided woodshed was the weed-grown garden- 
patch with its onion and lettuce tops gone to seed. 
Across the loose boardwalk some straggling sun- 
flowers drooped their withered heads and the cu- 
cumber vine twisting up the clothes-line post had 
shrivelled and dried in the burning sun. After 
awhile Ardena jumped up and went around the 
house and through the gate to Mrs. Shute’s house. 
Here the grass was fresh and green since it was pro- 
tected by the shade of well-kept trees and was sprin- 
kled every evening. To the back stretched neat 
beds of thriving vegetables and the fence and walk 


DENA 


9 6 

were lined with trim currant and raspberry bushes 
and vines of purpling grapes. Along the side of the 
house were little beds of flourishing marigolds, pan- 
sies, verbenas and sweet peas. Against the house 
tall hollyhocks swept their gay blossoms while a 
giant oak branched its cool shade over the back 
porch. 

“ Good afternoon, Ardena. Come right on in 
and sit down.” Mrs. Shute’s cordial voice came 
from the side porch behind a screen of woodbine. 

“ How nice and cool ! ” Ardena seated herself 
in the low rocker and breathed a sigh of content. 
She looked about at the shaded retreat with the 
braided mat at the doorstep and Mrs. Shute starched 
and immaculate in black and white calico. “ How 
pretty your new dress is! It looks so fresh and 
clean.” 

“ It does all right for a home dress. I wanted 
dimity, but I finally decided I’d better get calico 
again. Dimity does split soon and I knew if it gave 
out in a couple of summers that Ebenezer’d think 
that I was going through things pretty fast. He 
doesn’t seem to be feeling very well this hot weather 
and I guess little things irritate him more than 
usual.” 

“ And it’s so cool here. I nearly roasted over in 


IN HONOR OF WILLIAM THADDEUS 97 

our old oven.” Ardena was too happy in being cool 
to give much heed to the growing eccentricities of 
Mr. Shute. 

“ I think this is cool, too. But Ebenezer seems to 
have a real hard day of it. He’s been trying this 
porch and the front one all day and I guess he’s 
finally decided on the front one, for I haven’t seen 
him for about an hour now. How are all of you 
this hot day? ” 

“ Oh, Mrs. Shute,” Ardena stopped the rocker in 
its backward swing, her face clouded by the sweep 
of recollections, “ I never was in so much trouble — 
never, never, never! William T.’s invited the min- 
ister to supper Tuesday night.” 

‘‘Well, he’s coming, isn’t he?” Mrs. Shute still 
reclined in her chair, her arms folded comfortably. 

“ Mrs. Shute,” Ardena’s tone showed both sur- 
prise and impatience, “ I’m sure I’m not thinking 
about that part of it! If you had just old iron- 
stone china and glasses every one different and 
silverware with the silver all worn off and no refrig- 
erator to keep things cool, you wouldn’t care to en- 
tertain such an educated, distinguished, fastidious 
person as Reverend Bell, yourself. And then, be- 
sides, he’s Carlton’s father. And Carlton's in my 
class at school.” 


98 


DENA 


“ I don’t know the Bells myself very well but I 
hear they are very nice people. Don’t go around 
thinking that you aren’t as good as somebody else 
because then you probably aren’t.” 

“ But, Mrs. Shute, we haven’t had any company 
but the folks from the country for years and years 
— since before mother was sick. We aren’t used 
to it.” 

“ Then get used to it. Alonzo and William T. 
ought to become used to society ways. And get 
every one you can to come to your house that you 
like and make them feel welcome or the time will 
come when the boys are grown that you’ll feel sorry. 
I always liked company real well myself, but Eben- 
ezer’s always made a fuss about the extra kerosene 
and wood going to waste in the parlor. He’s con- 
siderable older than I am and I have to make allow- 
ances.” 

“ I know,” Ardena acknowledged. “ But, oh, to 
begin with the minister — and Mr. Bell ! Why, I’ve 
never hardly spoken to him.” 

“ That’s just where to begin ; you’ll be sure you’re 
starting right then. Anyway, you ought to give 
William T. his choice when it comes his turn.” 

Ardena’s chair swayed back and forth and then 
stopped short. “ I’ll agree to all that you’ve said, 


IN HONOR OF WILLIAM THADDEUS 99 

Mrs. Shute. But there’s yet the fact of no glasses 
and a wabbly chair that’s likely to give way at any 
time and a coffee pot that’s just sprung a leak.” 
Ardena’s eyes were glowing bright and eager. 

“ I guess I’ve got some extra glasses and some 
chairs that are sound and good. You go on with 
your entertaining and what you find missing I’ll try 
and fill in. Let your grandmother and your aunt 
know about your plans and they’ll probably be glad 
to help out, too. Don’t be hunting up any more ex- 
cuses, Ardena, but learn to do cheerfully what you 
have to do and do it just as well as you can.” 

In preparing for William T.’s party the next day 
Ardena went at it with her characteristic do-or-die 
spirit. The washing and ironing were temporarily 
postponed and Ardena spent Monday cleaning house 
and mending up presentable wardrobes. Early 
Monday morning she got a note off to Aunt Lib. 

It rained Monday night and Tuesday was some- 
what cooler, although still uncomfortably warm. 
About ten o’clock in the morning came the help 
Ardena had been confidently expecting — the gentle, 
sweet and capable Aunt Lib. 

“ It’s so kind of you to come, Aunt Lib,” Ardena 
cried as she ran out to the road to meet her. 

“ Well, we’re awfully busy, it’s true, but I knew 


IOO 


DENA 


you’d need help. It’s too hot for grandmother to 
get in and Logan’s pretty busy in the field, so I left 
the children with their grandmother and hitched up 
and came in myself. It’s rather warm for a party, 
isn’t it, Ardena ? ” 

Ardena told her all about William TVs self-ap- 
pointed mission, and Aunt Lib laughed. “ Just like 
a child,” she said. 

Aunt Lib’s buggy contained the party — there 
were salad eggs and a crock of potato salad and 
another crock of creamy yellow butter and some 
home-made pickles and a glass of jelly and some 
chicken fried all crisp and brown and a basket of 
luscious peaches and a wonderful big layer cake and 
a loaf of downy bread. “ Hurry the things right 
down cellar,” Aunt Lib called to Ardena, who with 
the help of the recently arrived Alonzo and William 
T. was busy taking the things to the house. “ It’s 
so hot that we thought we’d better get the things 
all ready and bring them to you and then you 
wouldn’t need to heat up the cook stove and get your 
house all warmed up.” 

“ I’ll stay until this afternoon,” Aunt Lib offered 
later, as she was taking off her hat. “ Then I must 
do a little trading and hurry home. I want to help 
you get your table set. Grandmother’s been real 


IN HONOR OF WILLIAM THADDEUS ioi 


worked up about your inviting Reverend Bell and 
she thought I’d better stay and get things pretty well 
along. Here’s grandmother’s best linen set, her 
tablecloth and napkins that we use only on very 
special occasions, so tell the boys to be careful. 
We’ll pull out the table here in the sitting room and 
get it set. I want to see how things are coming 
out.” 

Mr. Marsh came home at noon, but the meal con- 
sisted of leftovers served from a corner of the 
kitchen table. Then commenced the table setting 
and Ardena brought forth all the dishes that the 
pantry contained — a rather disheartening array of 
nicked and cracked ironstone. But by Mrs. Shute’s 
coming over at this opportune time they were able, 
upon insistent urging, to fill in the deficiencies from 
her well-equipped shelves. Mrs. Shute also contrib- 
uted the centerpiece in the way of a pretty doily and 
a big yellow bowl full of crisp, spicy nasturtiums. 

By five that evening Aunt Lib had departed and 
the Marsh family, with the kitchen serving tem- 
porarily as bathroom, were scrubbing or being 
scrubbed and then arraying themselves in the best 
at their disposal. A new little summer suit that 
Aunt Lib had brought in as grandmother’s remem- 
brance upon this momentous occasion and a new 


102 


DENA 


blue necktie from Aunt Lib had rendered William 
T. quite properly arrayed as host of the party. Mr. 
Marsh put on a stiff white shirt and buttoned on his 
coat and vest in heroic, though smothering, attempt 
to do honor to the guest. Alonzo’s waist was 
clean, his hands and face shinily scoured, his hair 
well plastered down and his feet encased in stiffly 
burning shoes. Alonzo had really warmed up to 
the event and was commendably anxious to do his 
part in a creditable manner. Ardena put on her 
thinnest shirtwaist and a stiff white skirt. 

Promptly at six appeared the guest. Alonzo, 
from an outpost in the corner of the yard, had seen 
him coming and the family were lined up in readi- 
ness to receive him — Mr. Marsh, Ardena, Alonzo 
and William T., that member of the family to the 
celebration of whose birthday anniversary the min- 
ister had been bidden being quite unconscious of the 
inferior place in the receiving line he was now oc- 
cupying. And when the minister finally shook his 
small hand, expressed his great gratification in be- 
ing able to help celebrate the day, wished him many 
happy returns and then put into his outstretched 
arms a mysterious, store-wrapped package, William 
T. actually squirmed in overwhelming embarrass- 
ment. But the opening of the package, which 


IN HONOR OF WILLIAM THADDEUS 103 

proved to be a box of paints, brought so much de- 
light to the recipient that his natural poise was re- 
stored and he, really too soon, grew a bit too loqua- 
cious so that various frowns from his father and 
whispers from his sister were necessary restraints to 
his loosened tongue. 

Mr. Bell took the old wooden rocker and, being 
thoughtfully reminded by Alonzo of its backward 
swaying tendencies, a possible mishap was averted. 
Mr. Marsh tried to appear at ease in a straight 
backed chair and Alonzo and William T. wiggled 
themselves into as comfortable positions as were 
possible between the bulging springs of the old car- 
pet lounge. Ardena was busy bringing up the last 
things from the cellar. 

Ardena had spent many anxious minutes during 
the day in coaching the boys in the various little 
things she thought of from time to time. They 
bowed their heads during grace with a reverence 
that was truly gratifying. Then in the awkward 
pause that followed, William T., unfortunately, was 
the first to experience a natural ease. 

“ The most of these things are ours,” pointing 
with just pride at the well-arranged and well-pro- 
visioned table, “ but what aren’t ours belongs to 
grandma or Aunt Lib or — ” 


104 


DENA 


William T.’s eyes met the menacing frown of the 
incensed Alonzo. Ardena was nudging him with a 
nudge that was enough to draw his mind to things 
purely physical, “ and — and — ” 

Mr. Bell’s dignified face was almost — but he 
struggled — amused. He coughed behind the stiff 
folds of grandmother’s best linen. Then he hast- 
ened to say in a very quiet and well-controlled voice, 
“ How very kind it is, William T., of all these good 
people to help you celebrate your birthday.” 

“ Yes — yes, sir,” quickly agreed the now ac- 
quitted William T., as he cast a justly innocent 
glance at the red-faced Alonzo. 

Mr. Bell’s happy remark broke the ice and the 
dinner party now continued on less strained and less 
formal lines. The watchful Ardena just caught 
William T.’s toppling glass in time to save the min- 
ister’s freshly pressed summer suit from a drench- 
ing, and Alonzo, visibly mortified, flopped a big 
juicy drumstick right into the center of grand- 
mother’s cherished tablecloth. But the meal was 
delicious and the Reverend Mr. Bell received second 
helpings with very little urging. 

The men enjoyed talking with one another, and 
Ardena noticed, not without a little glow of pride, 
that Mr. Bell listened attentively to her father's 


IN HONOR OF WILLIAM THADDEUS 105 

political views, to his criticism of books and to the 
wide range of his magazine reading. When the 
meal was over, Alonzo and William T., rather weary 
with much entertaining, departed for the outdoors, 
William T. making straight for the home of Budge 
Cracker with his final report. After Ardena had 
cleared away the table and was washing the dishes 
in the kitchen the two men, in spite of the warmth 
radiated from the kerosene lamp, played a game of 
absorbing and evenly matched chess. 

It was late that night when Ardena made her last 
pilgrimage to Mrs. Shute’s. She had purposely 
waited until after nine. The stars stood out thick 
and heavy in the blue blackness overhead and the 
air was cool and refreshing. Slowly and carefully 
she carried a chair loaded with glasses and dishes 
through the backyard gate towards the light in the 
distant kitchen. 

“ Here I am,” she called in a hushed voice. 

Mrs. Shute stepped lightly out on the porch and 
helped Ardena up the steps. “ Come right in and 
sit down and tell me all about it. Ebenezer’s off 
to bed and sound asleep, so we won’t disturb him.” 

Ardena dropped down into the nearest chair, her 
eyes bright with excitement. “ It was just fine, 
Mrs. Shute ! Even Alonzo said so. The table 


io6 


DENA 


looked so pretty when I got everything on it and 
the supper was so good and Mr. Bell was so nice 
and father was so funny ! Mr. Bell's not one speck 
stuck up. He earned all of his way through college 
and he told us so many funny college scrapes. And 
he brought William T. a beautiful box of paints — 
Mrs. Bell sent them. Even Alonzo liked Mr. Bell 
— I could see he did. I’m so glad, for I was afraid 
Alonzo was changing. He used to be so nice and 
lately he’s been getting smart. I hope Mr. Bell 
keeps a hold on him and gets him interested in Sun- 
day school again. I mean to tell him to. And 
father was a fine entertainer — I was so proud of 
him! 

“ He told some of his stories and then they talked 
books and then they played chess. Father was 
beaten, too, and he was so surprised that he asked 
Mr. Bell to play with him often. Of course some 
things went wrong; but then father turned each 
mishap off with some witty remark. Do you know, 
Mrs. Shute,” Ardena said thoughtfully, “ I’m going 
to do as you say and have more company. We 
haven’t nice furniture but if we’re hospitable that’s 
the main thing.” 

Mrs. Shute nodded instant approval. “ That’s 


IN HONOR OF WILLIAM THADDEUS 107 


right, Ardena. That’s just right. You don’t have 
to wait for fine linen and silver before beginning 
your entertaining. Hospitality and ironstone can 
make your company have a good time.” 


CHAPTER VII 


CHRISTMAS AGAIN 

Christmas was coming again. Ardena was learn- 
ing to dread Christmas. Christmases seemed to 
mean, most of all, cold weather, extra fuel and cloth- 
ing, diminished family funds, big expectations on the 
part of the boys and much worrying and planning 
for herself and her father. But Christmases come. 
And now another was fast drawing very near. 

This was the second Christmas without the 
mother. The first had passed of! better than Ar- 
dena had anticipated. From a very slender fund 
given to her by her father Ardena had managed to 
buy a few trinkets for the boys, she and her father, 
by silent agreement, having planned to omit gifts to 
one another. But they had all gone out to the farm 
for the Christmas Eve tree and the Christmas Day 
dinner, slipping along the frozen roads in Uncle 
Logan’s big, bumpy bob-sled. The Christmas tree 
consisted mostly of ornaments and the ornaments 
were home-made strings of popcorn and cranber- 
108 


CHRISTMAS AGAIN 


109 


ries. But no king of the realm had feasted on a 
more sumptuous dinner than the one that grand- 
mother and Aunt Lib had prepared. So that Christ- 
mas season, with much satisfaction to Alonzo and 
much joy to William T., had slipped past. 

And now another was coming. This Christmas, 
too, seemed destined to be the most troublesome 
Christmas that Ardena had yet known. 

In the first place the Marsh family could not go 
out to the farm because Aunt Lib’s children were all 
down with the measles. Also, grandmother could 
not come in to see them for the day, since she was 
only just recovering from a severe cold that had 
left her weak and coughing. As the time drew near 
Ardena learned that she could not even count upon 
Mrs. Shute for advice and help. Mr. Shute, who 
had been in failing health during the autumn, was 
now not expected to live from day to day. 

Was there ever a more doleful outlook for a 
Merry Christmas? It is little wonder that Ardena 
felt her heart sink within her as the day drew near. 
But she decided to make a great effort to have the 
day as much of a success as she could, for Alonzo 
and William T., in spite of these rather dishearten- 
ing events, were, nevertheless, eagerly awaiting the 
event. Ardena told her father to invite Doc Stubbs 


no 


DENA 


in for dinner and she planned the meal with extra 
care. Her father gave her the sum of two dollars 
for presents for the boys and this meager amount 
Ardena tried to stretch sufficiently to include a few 
of the many and sundry demands that the longings 
of Alonzo and William T. imposed upon it. 

Ardena’s own Christmas promised better enter- 
tainment than that of the boys, the sophomore class 
having been invited to the beautiful home of Adel- 
bert Hastings for a Christmas night party. Ardena 
had a new dress that grandmother had made over 
from one of her mother’s and she had a new cloak 
that had been bought when the price had been re- 
duced and she had a new cap and Carlton Bell was 
going to take her. Ardena was counting the very 
minutes up to the time of really going. Feeling a 
little conscience-stricken when she recollected that 
her good time might be better than that of her 
brothers she dutifully gave the most of the week 
before Christmas towards getting ready for the boys’ 
holiday. 

She washed (with the help of her father and 
Alonzo and the too helpful William T.) and she 
ironed, she swept and she dusted, she cooked and she 
baked and she mended, she patched and she darned. 
It is true that the icy upstairs rooms received the 


CHRISTMAS AGAIN 


in 


proverbial lick-and-promise cleaning and that the 
patches and darns were rather hastily drawn to- 
gether bunches. But, after a fashion and with the 
best of intentions, Ardena did it all. 

Cold weather came on just before Christmas — 
a gray and snowy cold. Then, on Christmas Eve, 
came a blizzard; the real white, howling, blinding 
Iowa blizzard. The wind shook the loose doors and 
windows of the old house and piled them full of 
sifting snow. The cold crept out from the corners 
of the sitting room and pressed close against 
the florid surface of the crackling Round Oak 
stove. 

On Christmas Eve was the celebration at the 
church and Ardena had counted much on this event 
as a means of entertaining the children. They 
always enjoyed the huge Christmas tree (and this 
year that would be their only tree) and the bag of 
candy and nuts and the orange they received from 
the hands of a big and facetious Santa. Santa 
Claus, even with Alonzo, had never failed to bring 
forth most pleasurable emotions. As the white, 
whirling afternoon darkened into night Ardena still 
kept up hope. William T. talked incessantly of the 
great treat that was in store for him, for he con- 
fidently expected to attend the exercises. 


I 12 


DENA 


About six Mr. Marsh and Alonzo came in, white 
with snow and panting for breath. Ardena brushed 
the snow from them with the broom and helped them 
take off their wraps. Mr. Marsh, solicitous about 
Alonzo, had helped him deliver his papers. Both 
were tired and cold and sat quietly with their feet 
in the oven, drying and warming. Ardena had 
drawn the table up near the stove and had a steam- 
ing supper and hot cocoa ready for them. With 
their backs shivering and their feet drawn up on 
the rounds of the old kitchen chairs the family be- 
gan supper while the wind howled around the 
kitchen and the flying snow clicked sharply against 
the window-panes. 

“When we going to start, Dena?” William T. 
asked presently, havjpg drained to the last drop his 
second and last cup of cocoa. 

“ The children had better abandon the thought of 
going to the church to-night,” Mr. Marsh answered. 
“ You don't want to go out in the storm again, do 
you, Alonzo?” 

But Alonzo, while not excitedly insistent, never- 
theless manifested his willingness to weather the 
storm a second time. “ Tisn’t Christmas Eve if 
you just stay at home and don’t do anything,” he 
summarized. 


CHRISTMAS AGAIN 


ii3 

Ardena looked at her father. “ It isn’t very far,” 
she suggested. 

Mr. Marsh frowned — a rather weary and re- 
signed frown. “ Well, well,” he said briefly, “ may- 
be I can get them there. I wouldn’t think of let- 
ting you go alone with them in such a storm, Ar- 
dena. I would be worried unless I were along. 
Maybe I’d better go on over first and see whether 
they intend having the exercises or not. It’s a little 
hard to plan — ” 

Just then the kitchen door was wrenched open and 
in a whirl of pelting, blinding snowflakes little Mrs. 
Shute was blown into the room. 

“ I can’t sit,?’ she breathlessly explained, after 
Mr. Marsh had forced the door shut behind her and 
was offering her a chair near the stove. “ No, keep 
your seat, Mr. Marsh, and all of you go right on 
with your eating. I’m real upset,” as she drew an- 
other breath, “ and I don’t know what is best to be 
done. Mrs. Guffy says that she’ll have to get off 
for some rest and some sleep. She needs it, too, for 
she’s getting old and can’t keep up with a long siege 
of nursing as she once could. And I sort of think 
Doc Stubbs had better come up. He’s suffering con- 
siderable again. I wish now that Ebenezer hadn’t 
been so set against telephones. They’re real handy 


DENA 


1 14 

at a time like this. But there, I don’t mean to say 
a word that sounds like complaining. I — I — ” 
She was such a tired-out, weary-eyed, pathetic-look- 
ing little figure. 

" I’ll go down for the doctor at once,” Mr. Marsh 
said quickly. “ I’ll spend the night with Mr. Shute 
and give you and the nurse the rest that you need. 
We are glad to do all that we can for you, I am 
sure. Do as much as we can we will still be your 
debtors.” 

And thus it came about that the Christmas Eve 
project was abandoned. Ardena and Alonzo and 
even William T. left alone on Christmas Eve with 
nothing to do other than washing the dishes and 
keeping the fires going and getting ready for bed 
talked of things other than Christmas trees and 
boxes of candy. Just once William T. with his 
round face very long and serious mentioned some- 
thing about Christmas trees in general but was 
silenced even then by Alonzo who exclaimed rather 
gruffly, “ Say, you make me tired, William T. ! 
Can’t you learn to brace up and take a thing when 
you have to? I’d like to know who knit you your 
last pair of mittens, anyway?” 

The next morning was cold. Boo, but it was 
cold ! It was a creaking, snapping, biting, sneaking 


CHRISTMAS AGAIN 


i i'S 


cold. Mr. Marsh had come in from the Shute’s 
about six o’clock and had the fires burning up 
brightly. Alonzo and William T. crept downstairs 
in their nightgowns and dressed by the sitting room 
fire and Ardena came hurrying down with shoes un- 
laced and dress unbuttoned and comb and hairpins 
in her hand. Mr. Marsh announced that the ther- 
mometer registered twelve below at six when he 
came in. And in mockery of it all the sun shone 
down in dazzling brightness on the billows of spot- 
less and glistening snow. 

Ardena had fixed up the sitting room table in a 
festive way on the preceding evening and the boys 
were delighted with the sight that now greeted them. 
She had bought some holly and red tissue paper by 
way of decoration and had draped these around the 
red wool stand-cover. The few presents lay in the 
middle. There wasn’t much — a pencil box and 
knife for Alonzo and a hammer and a game for Wil- 
liam T. Then there were some useful presents 
from grandmother in the way of stockings and muf- 
flers and caps. Ardena had filled some carefully 
saved candy boxes with popcorn and fudge. 
Alonzo had taken from his money earned by carry- 
ing papers enough to purchase for Ardena a wooden 
stocking darner, for his father a tie pin and for 


n6 


DENA 


William T. a tin goat on wheels. For Alonzo's first 
venture in Christmas shopping each recipient 
showed appropriate and commendable apprecia- 
tion. 

“ Mrs. Shute sent over this bundle," Mr. Marsh 
remarked, pausing long enough while taking out the 
ashes to point to a chair. “ She said that she picked 
the things up on the fly while she was downtown a 
week ago." 

The package contained a box of handkerchiefs — 
good linen ones, too. Three for each member of 
the Marsh family, big and little. 

“ Oh ! " exclaimed Ardena. Then she added, 
“ She never forgets us. How is Mr. Shute ? " 

“ He can’t last over twenty-four hours longer," 
her father answered her in a low voice. “ He is 
suffering, too. I’ll be there the most of the day. 
He’s so eccentric that he will allow only a certain 
few around him. And Doc told me to tell you that 
he’s sorry but he can’t be here for dinner. He has a 
call from the country and with such roads as there 
are now the trip will take him the most of the day. 
Says he intended buying you children some presents 
but he has been so busy that he forgot it. Gave me 
five dollars this morning for you. I can buy some 
books with it for you children." 


CHRISTMAS AGAIN 


ii 7 

“ William T. needs a new overcoat pretty badly,” 
Ardena suggested. “ I can scarcely get him inside 
of his old one.” 

It was a long, lonesome, monotonous day for the 
Marsh children. After breakfast the family took 
baths in the kitchen, heated to the point of suffoca- 
tion, and arrayed themselves in their best in proper 
observance of the day. Mr. Marsh took a nap, went 
downtown and then over to the Shute’s. Alonzo 
whittled with his new knife until he broke a blade, 
expressed his opinion of a woman's selection of a 
jackknife and turned his attention to the last piece 
of fudge in his box of candy. William T. pounded 
nails in a board until his chubby thumb received the 
mighty stroke intended for the refractory nail and 
then came to Ardena, busy singeing the chicken over 
the glowing coals, for repairs and consolation. Ar- 
dena showed the boys how to play the new game and 
this amusement kept them busy while she completed 
the dinner. 

Ardena prepared the dinner with the greatest of 
care. She put on a fresh tablecloth and got down 
the few best pieces of china and glassware from the 
top shelf in the cupboard. The smell of the chicken 
and coffee made the big, sunny kitchen fragrant with 
their aroma and the boys hovered expectantly about 


n8 


DENA 


the stove. But the things were overdone and get- 
ting dry when Mr. Marsh hurried into the kitchen. 

“ I’m very sorry, Ardena,” Mr. Marsh apologized, 
as they all drew their chairs up to the table, “ but I 
was unavoidably detained at the office and also at 
Mrs. Shute’s house. This is a fine dinner.” But 
although appreciating the kindness of the remark 
Ardena felt the cook’s keen disappointment in the 
delayed serving of the ready and waiting meal. 

Ardena let the boys prepare a basket of things 
for Mrs. Shute, and they carried it over between 
them. But they returned with rather dampened ar- 
dor. Mrs. Shute was asleep and they couldn’t even 
have a visit with this much liked little neighbor. It 
was three o’clock when the dishes were finally 
washed and dried and put away. Then until it was 
five Ardena read to the boys some of the Uncle Re- 
mus stories. The story about the Tar Baby brought 
forth the usual amount of mirthful appreciation and 
Ardena heard them laugh out in good fun for the 
first time that day. At six Mr. Marsh came in 
again for a hasty lunch. 

“ I’m sorry, Ardena,” he said, as he rose from the 
table, “ but I can’t be here to-night. I must go on 
down to the drug store. Doc hasn’t come back yet 
and I’d better not leave until he comes. The nurse 


CHRISTMAS AGAIN 


1 19 

will be on duty again to-night and I’ll try to get in 
about ten.” 

“ But, father,” Ardena said, “ you know our class 
party is to-night at the Hastings’ and Carlton is com- 
ing for me. Yet I don’t want to leave the boys 
alone. They’ve had a long, lonesome day of it. 
Do you think you had better stop in and tell Carlton 
on your way downtown that I can’t go ? ” 

“ Guess I can look after things. I’m no baby.” 
Alonzo’s tohe was full of forced and scornful bra- 
vado but his usually expressive face was stolid and 
impassive. William T.’s round face expressed 
nothing at all. He was undoubtedly accepting the 
dictates of fortune in a perfectly apathetic manner. 

“ Well, well, Ardena, maybe you’d better let 
Alonzo take care of William T. this evening. I’ll 
try to run over soon after eight and see that they 
get into bed. You don’t go to many parties. And 
the Hastings’ home is a pleasant one to be invited 
to. It will do you good to go. And you’d better 
not disappoint Carlton Bell this late in the day.” 

Ardena dressed for the party in her frozen-up 
little room beneath the sloping, frosty roof of the 
house. It was so cold that her hands ached as she 
combed her hair and she shifted from one foot to the 
other as she put on her dress. But in spite of her 


120 


DENA 


hasty toilet Ardena looked pretty as she came down 
into the sitting room to black her shoes in order that 
their everyday, worn appearance might assume a 
more dressed-up look. She wore the soft gray dress 
that grandmother had made from one that had be- 
longed to her mother and its only trimming was 
tucks and shirring. But with her bright red hair 
puffed out about her face she made a pleasing pic- 
ture. Even Alonzo who sat idly on the edge of the 
old carpet lounge with his hands thrust deep down 
into his trousers pockets continued to look at her 
after a first hasty glance. William T., quite de- 
lighted, ran his sticky little hands in loving admira- 
tion over the folds of this very best dress. Ardena 
made no objections. She was thinking. Two very 
sober little faces kept Ardena busily thinking. 

Carlton came over early for Ardena. “ Mighty 
cold outside,” he said as he was ushered into the 
room by the hospitable William T. “ Believe it’s 
warming up a little, though. Well, William T., 
how are you? ” he asked, as he unbuttoned his big 
overcoat. 

William T. wiggled. 

“ Had a Merry Christmas ? ” 

William T. drew a long breath. Then he com- 
menced. " It — it — ” Then he commenced again. 


CHRISTMAS AGAIN 


121 


“ Grandmother couldn’t come in ’cause it was so 
cold and all Aunt Lib’s children got the measles and 
Mr. Shute’s very sick and dying and father stays 
over there and Doc Stubbs had to go out in the coun- 
try.” In this one long breath William T. had fully 
explained the situation. Then, on catching a scowl 
from Alonzo, “Ye — e — es, sir, we — we had a 
Merry Christmas. Only,” wiggling in big squirms 
around his chair, “ we didn’t get to see the Christ- 
mas tree at the church, either.” William T. wasn’t 
looking in Alonzo’s direction. 

“ Father thought we’d better stay at home last 
night and keep the fires going.” Alonzo was mak- 
ing haste to give his version of the day. “ Hasn’t 
been anything wrong with this Christmas.” 

“ Father has been over to the Shutes’, helping the 
most of the day. We usually go out to the farm 
and have a big tree and dinner together. So I think 
that the boys really haven’t had a very happy day. 
But they’ve been mighty good about making the best 
of it. Mr. Shute isn’t expected to last through the 
night and father is over there now. Really, Carl- 
ton, I think I’d better stay at home this evening. 
I’m sorry to disappoint you right here at the last — 
and the party will be lots of fun, I know, but — no, 
I’m not going, and that ends it.” 


122 


DENA 


"Aw, go on, Ardena,” said Alonzo, looking 
steadily down at the worn toe of his shoe. “ Guess 
I know enough to put a stick of wood in the stove. 
William TVs got to go to bed right away, anyway.” 

“ I don’t either have to go right away, so there.” 
William T. was casting a pouting glance at Alonzo. 
“ On Christmas nights I never go to bed early.” 

“ Say, Ardena,” spoke up Carlton, “ let’s take the 
youngsters along. Like to know why not. Going 
to have a Christmas farce with a Christmas tree in it 
and all sorts of fun. They’ll enjoy it. I know Mrs. 
Hastings well and it will be all right with her.” 

“ Thank you, Carlton,” Ardena spoke with some 
dignity, “ but I can’t take them where they aren’t 
invited. It’s been a lonely, disappointing old day 
from start to finish. But I’d just hate myself when 
I got there and thought of the boys here alone. 
They’ve been regular little bricks all day and I’ll 
stand by them just as well as they’ve stood by me. 
I don’t like Christmas — I never have liked Christ- 
mas — and I never will like Christmas, so there ! ” 
Ardena’s cheeks glowed a deep red. “ But, oh, dear 
me,” as she beheld Carlton’s embarrassed flush and 
the startled faces of the two boys, “ what am I say- 
ing ! We’ll call this Christmas just a great big fizzle 
and next Christmas we’ll have twice as much fun 


CHRISTMAS AGAIN 


123 


to make up, won’t we, William T. ? ” Ardena was 
forcing a smile to her lips. “ I hope you have a fine 
time at the party and the farce goes off well, Carlton. 
I’ll be anxious to hear about it all.” Ardena was 
winking pretty hard. “ William T., you get the 
checker board out and Ardena’ll show you how to 
play checkers. You’ve been wanting to learn. 
Let’s see if you and I can beat Alonzo.” 

“ Say, Ardena,” said Carlton again, as he rose to 
go, “ I know it would be all right if you all went, 
considering the circumstances, and Mrs. Hastings 
would want you to. But — well, so long. It’s as 
you say. All those in the farce are expected to get 
there early for there’s always lots to be done at the 
last. That’s a mighty fine tin goat, William T. 
What you feeding him — tin cans ? ” 

It was about a half hour later when Alonzo and 
William T. and Ardena, sitting very close to the fire, 
were intent upon the momentous movements of their 
crowned heads that a knock sounded on the front 
door. Almost upsetting the board in his precipitate 
haste William T. flew to open the door. 

“ Good evening, Mish Marsh.” 

The big, overcoated figure who had stepped into 
the room was Mr. Jackson. Ardena quite gasped. 

“ I have been sent over with some messages,” he 


124 


DENA 


said, smiling as he handed her an envelope. He 
unbuttoned his overcoat and s^t down in the chair 
that Alonzo had thoughtfully set forward for him. 

There were three notes addressed to Ardena, one 
to Alonzo and one to William T. The first note 
that Ardena opened was from Mrs. Hastings. It 
was a most cordial invitation for Ardena to come 
and bring her two brothers. Another note was 
from Miss Miller and she said that every member 
of the sophomore class was present except Ardena 
and that the class sent a special invitation for her 
to come and bring the boys. Since Carlton was 
busy getting ready for the play, she had sent Mr. 
Jackson over for them and she hoped that Ardena 
would not disappoint him. A third note was from 
Annabel Dilly. Alonzo's note was from Carlton 
who sent a hurry-up call for him to come over and 
help them as a boy to run errands and help stage the 
play was badly needed. With the help of Mr. Jack- 
son William T. was slowly but steadily deciphering 
his own note. It was from both Gladys and Ger- 
trude Hastings asking William T. to come and play 
with them that evening. They wanted some guests 
of their own age very badly and their mother had 
told them that they could invite William T. Could 
he please hurry and come right away? 


CHRISTMAS AGAIN 


125 


“ I know Gladys and Gertrude,” William T. was 
proudly explaining. “ Gladys is in the room below 
me and Gertrude is in the room above me. They’re 
nice.” 

“ Well,” exclaimed Alonzo, in his most important 
tone of voice, “ I think I’ll hurry over there just as 
soon as I can! They’re probably waiting for me 
now. Must I black my shoes again, Ardena ? And 
is my tie on straight ? ” 

With Mr. Jackson’s help Ardena soon had the 
boys ready. Mr. Jackson assisted Alonzo into his 
new, plenty-large-enough overcoat and Ardena 
squeezed William T.’s fat little person into his little 
old overcoat and finally succeeded in twisting the 
buttons into the buttonholes. After scribbling a 
note to her father, which she left leaning against 
the lamp, she turned the light low, shut the stove up 
tight and they all set off for the party. 

With William T.’s fat little hand in his Mr. Jack- 
son led the way and was the friendliest and happiest 
of escorts. Alonzo insisted upon making all pos- 
sible haste, and so they were soon approaching the 
brightly lighted home of the Hastings. As they 
went up the well-shovelled path to the large front 
porch Ardena began to feel a bit dubious. Taking 
small brothers to class parties was something of a 


126 


DENA 


departure. The boys tiptoed up the steps to the 
porch like a couple of mice. Mr. Jackson opened 
the door and they stepped into a place that seemed 
all light and laughing and talking. Gladys had 
opened the door for them — Gladys all pink and 
white with a huge bristling bow rising erect from 
her bobbed head and two very big blue eyes taking in 
William T. from head to foot. Ardena began to 
feel quite embarrassed. And then Mrs. Hastings, 
large and hospitable, came and shook hands cor- 
dially with them all, and Miss Miller, in blue, greeted 
them and Annabel Dilly came up and said how glad 
she was to see them there. Then Carlton came and 
took Alonzo away as soon as he could take off his 
wraps, and Gladys, reinforced by Gertrude, just a 
little bigger pink and white creation, came and took 
William T. off upstairs to the playroom. 

The Marsh children spent a most delightful 
Christmas evening in the Hastings home. Ardena 
caught glimpses of Alonzo hurrying hither and 
thither and heard occasional rings of childish laugh- 
ter floating down the stairs. During the perform- 
ance of the Christmas farce William T., between 
two very erect and bristling pink bows on the front 
row of seats, was seen fathering a family of dolls. 
Whispered calls for Alonzo were heard af frequent 


CHRISTMAS AGAIN 


127 


intervals and he was seen helping in all sorts of 
ways. Ardena, seated between Miss Miller and An- 
nabel Dilly, was too happy for words. Later in the 
evening Alonzo came to tell Ardena that he was 
going to help Mrs. Hastings in the kitchen, and 
during the serving of the refreshments William T. 
was entrusted with the passing of the nuts. 

In leaving, Mrs. Hastings graciously expressed 
her great indebtedness to Alonzo and asked Ardena 
to bring the boys and come over as often as she 
could. William T. received gratifying requests to 
visit the playroom very soon again. Carlton Bell 
took them home, but it was so icy cold outside that 
they couldn’t draw long enough breaths to do much 
talking. In parting with Carlton they all three 
made it very clear in a very few sentences that they 
had all had a very Merry Christmas. 

But later, when Ardena was peeling off William 
T.’s tight little coat from his round, warm little per- 
son, Alonzo said, “ Say, Ardena, I don’t know how 
Mrs. Hastings could have managed without me. 
I’m mighty glad I was there to help out.” 

And William T. sleepily added, “ And Gertrude 
and Gladys are nice. They always remember to say 
‘thank you’ and ‘please’ to their father and 
mother. I got to have another birthday party, 


128 


DENA 


Dena, and this time I’m going to invite Gertrude and 
Gladys.” 

Later Ardena, telling her father all about it, con- 
cluded, “ I’m glad they got to go. It made a Christ- 
mas for them. But that isn’t all. Do you know, 
father, that I’m so proud of Alonzo! He imitates 
older people quickly and in a little while he was talk- 
ing in that quiet, gracious manner that makes Mrs. 
Hastings so charming. And William T. needs to 
play with well-mannered little girls like the Hastings 
children, too. I’m going to keep the boys more with 
me and be more careful of their manners. I’m so 
sorry for Mrs. Shute. But I’m glad that the boys 
could have a little Christmas fun. They’ve been 
mighty good the whole day and they deserved a good 
time.” 


CHAPTER VIII 


HOUSEWORK AND READING 

To her second-year class in English literature 
Miss Miller, on the Monday that succeeded the holi- 
days, strongly urged the formation of the habit 
early in life of consecutive and systematic reading 
of the best books. She said that she intended to 
adopt a new plan for the class work during January. 
From a list of sixty books which she would dictate 
she would ask each member of the class to read at 
least one a week, and on Friday there would be a 
discussion of the contents of these books. Each 
member was to make a brief report of the book read 
and to summarize in a few words his impression 
of it. If more than one book was read, there would 
be recognition of this fact in making up the class 
grade for the month. Then Miss Miller, in blue, 
looking again at the list, was moved to speak further. 
She said that there was not a book on the list the 
contents of which any member of the class could 
afford to remain in ignorance. She added that she 
129 


I 3° 


DENA 


hoped that each, voluntarily, would read as many of 
the books on the list as was possible. In selecting 
the books, to be sure, they were to choose those with 
which they were not yet familiar. 

Ardena hurried straight home after school — that 
is, she hurried as fast as two very worn and slippery 
rubbers and a very hard-packed, snowy sidewalk 
would let her. She was trying, all the way, to think 
where she had last seen her library card. Arriving 
home she straightway began to search; and she 
looked under all of the things stacked up on the sit- 
ting room table and she looked through the what-not 
filled with books and she looked upstairs around her 
bureau and then she looked downstairs again around 
the machine. She located it, at last, clear down in 
the heaped-up mending basket under a lost stocking 
of William T.’s. Then Ardena again buttoned up 
her coat, pulled on her worn-out gloves and departed 
for downtown and the library. When she arrived 
inside the rather hot and stuffy little upstairs room 
which was the beginning of the Arcadia free public 
library, she found, lined up in front of the librarian's 
desk, Annabel Dilly and Carlton Bell and Adelbert 
Hastings and Reuben Green and Eliakim Meeker 
and Leta Lindsey. 

“ How many do you think you can read ? ” Anna- 


HOUSEWORK AND READING 13 1 

bel asked her in a whisper as she passed her with a 
book under her arm. 

“ Well, I don’t know,” Ardena answered. “ You 
know I don’t have very much time to read with so 
much to see to at home. How many can you ? ” 

“ I have to help at home a good deal, too, but I’m 
going to read as many as I possibly can. Of course 
I ought to become acquainted with the books on the 
list that I haven’t already read and then, also, you 
know that Miss Miller wishes us to read as many as 
we possibly can. What are you going to start 
with?” to Leta, standing ahead of Ardena. 

“ ‘ The Man Without a Country/ I thought I’d 
start with a short one and Carlton said this was 
short. Oh, yes, indeed, I intend to read more than 
the required four. Why, Miss Miller has asked us 
as a personal favor to read as many as we can and 
we all want to do what will please Miss Miller. 
I’ll wait, Ardena, and walk home with you.” 

After leaving Leta at the street corner Ardena 
hurried on home as fast as she could. She must 
iron a waist for William T. to put on in the morn- 
ing, before she started supper. But maybe she could 
read the first chapter. That would make a good be- 
ginning. So, on arriving home, she put some wood 
in the kitchen stove and pushed the irons to the 


132 


DENA 


front. Then she sat down on the edge of a chair 
near the stove and put her feet in the oven. It was 
six when Ardena finally glanced up from her book. 
William T. had come in from sliding down hill 
with Budge Cracker and was expressing, in wide- 
eyed reproof, his surprise at the lack of supper-get- 
ting preparations evident before him. Ardena 
slammed the book shut, caught up her blue kitchen 
apron hung from a convenient nail, swung her arms 
into the big armholes, picked up a pan and descended 
to the cellar for potatoes. 

Haste surely made waste with the getting of the 
supper. The potatoes boiled dry and the eggs, while 
being poached, stuck exasperatingly to the bottom of 
the pan and the supply of bread she found to be be- 
low her expectations. 

“ Well,” said Mr. Marsh, newspaper in hand, as 
the family finally encircled the dining-table, “ I’m 
afraid that your book got the better of you. What 
are you reading? ” 

“ ‘ Lorna Doone/ ” answered Ardena, pouring tea 
for her father from a teapot with a broken spout. 
“ Miss Miller wishes us to do outside reading this 
month.” 

“ That is a very good idea, Ardena,” as he turned 
the page of the newspaper, “ a most excellent idea. 


HOUSEWORK AND READING 133 

You aren’t reading as extensively as I did at your 
age. Only by steadily keeping at it from youth to 
old age can one begin to keep pace with the wealth 
of good reading that surrounds one. Observe 
Blackmore’s style while reading that book.” 

“ I never seem to get the time to read very long 
books,” Ardena replied, as she spread a slice of 
bread and butter for William T. “ But of course 
I’d do anything that I possibly could to please Miss 
Miller. She has asked us to spend this month read- 
ing all of the books that we can. She’s immensely 
proud of our English literature class and so we all 
want to do all we can to please her. I think I can 
read one big book or two small ones a week. I read 
rapidly. I want to keep even with Annabel and 
Carlton. Miss Miller said that January is an extra 
fine reading month because of the long evenings.” 

School mornings were busy mornings for Ardena. 
There was always William T. to wash and dress and 
a final inspection to be made of Alonzo’s neck and 
ears. Then she tried to get the breakfast dishes 
washed and the sitting room straightened up a little 
before she set off for school at the very last moment. 
The next morning, dismayed, she realized that she 
had forgotten to iron William T.’s waist. With a 
hasty dash she smoothed off with a few strokes of 


134 


DENA 


a barely warm iron a red-spotted waist that she 
pulled from the clothes basket bulging with clothes 
waiting to be ironed. Not without some remarks 
of disapproval on the part of William T. was she 
able to button him into it, to tie a limp red necktie 
about his neck, twist him into his little old coat 
(William TVs new one was being saved for very 
best), pull his stocking cap down over his fat cheeks, 
put on one mitten and advise putting the other hand 
in his pocket until the missing mitten came to light, 
place a battered second reader under his arm and 
hurry him off. 

At noontime both Mr. Marsh and Alonzo always 
hurried home as quickly as possible and assisted Ar- 
dena in getting the lunch. At noon on this particu- 
lar day William T. arrived home very long in the 
face and much grieved in manner. 

“ You didn’t iron out my waist with a hot enough 
iron, Dena,” he accused his big sister. “ Budge — 
he said it looked funny and Budge’s mother — she 
said you didn’t iron it out with a hot enough iron. 
I like ironed out waists — I do. Grandma always 
irons out my waists nice and slippery — she does. 
I’m going to show my waist to Mrs. Shute — I 
am. 

But this being the busy noon hour William TVs 


HOUSEWORK AND READING 135 

complaints and forewarnings went unnoticed. 
“ Don’t bother,” was all the consolation he received 
from Ardena, busy pouring glasses of milk. 
“ Maybe I can do it to-night.” Mr. Marsh, with 
another appeal to William T. to eliminate a few of 
the unnecessary pronouns that seemed prone to en- 
cumber his speech in spite of innumerable correc- 
tions, swung him up into his high chair and tied on 
his napkin. Alonzo was already eating, there being 
no time for formalities in the serving and the eating 
of this school-day noon lunch. 

That evening when she returned from school, Ar- 
dena found, sitting on her kitchen table, a basket of 
clothes that were ironed in the smoothest and glos- 
siest of fashions. Ardena frowned, and grew red 
in the face. 

Near the close of the week Ardena returned 
“ Lorna Doone ” and brought home “ Kenilworth.” 
On Saturday evening it was the established custom 
in the Marsh family for the kitchen to be heated, the 
boiler put on, the washtub brought in and for the 
family to take baths. On Sunday morning they put 
on their clean clothing. During the preceding week 
Ardena had not found time to do the family mend- 
ing. 

‘‘Well, just look at this, will you!” Alonzo ex- 


DENA 


136 

claimed in a disgusted tone of voice, as he came out 
in the kitchen on Sunday morning. “ Great big 
hole in the knee of my stocking and my underwear 
showing through ! Wish grandma could get in here 
to see us. You don’t find grandma sitting around 
reading all the time.” 

“ I can’t help it,” Ardena responded rather irri- 
tably, while stirring the oatmeal for breakfast. “ I 
should think you could learn to mend the holes in 
your stockings yourself. If you were a girl, you 
would be doing it. I don’t see why I have to do 
everything that’s done around this place.” 

“ Maybe after this, instead of reading on Satur- 
day night, you’d better attend to the mending,” Mr. 
Marsh suggested in a pacifying tone of voice, as he 
put on his hat to go for an armful of wood. 
“ Work before play, Ardena. But ‘ Kennilworth ’ 
is absorbing. I remember how I sat up nights to 
read it when I was a boy. What do you think you 
will read next? Try Thackeray — say ‘ The New- 
comes.’ Colonel Newcome is one of my favorite 
characters in fiction.” 

The next book that Ardena secured from the 
library was, therefore, “ The Newcomes ” — a big, 
bulky volume of fine print. Ardena intended to 
make a tremendous effort to read the book in a week. 


HOUSEWORK AND READING 137 

In a little over two weeks she would finish three 
books. She hoped to do still better in the remain- 
ing half of the month. 

By hurrying over the Saturday morning work Ar- 
dena found time to finish “ The Newcomes ” the fol- 
lowing week. Down at the library she met Leta 
Lindsey again. Leta wanted “ The Luck of Roar- 
ing Camp.’’ Ardena selected “ Pride and Preju- 
dice.” 

“ ‘ Pride and Prejudice ’ is awfully slow reading,” 
Leta whispered to Ardena, when they were back 
among the book-stacks. “ It’s a little volume but 
the print is fine. And * The Mill on the Floss ’ is 
simply impossible. The name sounded sort of nice 
and so I took it. I thought I ought to read one of 
the big books, at least. But I had to give it up. 
And so I lost out on that. If I get the four read 
that I have to IT 1 do well. Mother’s making some 
new Irish crochet and I’m crazy to learn. Dear, 
dear, isn’t it just a bother trying to keep school work 
going when there are a hundred outside things you’d 
rather do ! ” 

On the next Sunday William T. was half sick 
with a cold. Ardena, book in hand, (it was 
“ Treasure Island ”) wound red flannel about his 
neck and covered him up on the lounge. 


DENA 


138 

“ Read to me, Dena,” he coaxed. “ Read me 
‘ The Tar Baby/ ” 

“ Sister can’t stop and do it now. You be a good 
boy and go to sleep.” 

“ I slept all night,” answered William T. “ Folks 
don’t sleep in day time. When you going to finish 
reading books, Dena? When’s grandma going to 
get well so she can come in and see me? When’s 
Aunt Lib coming ? When’s Lillie going to get well ? 
Where’s Uncle Logan? Does Mrs. Shute know I’m 
sick on the lounge, Dena? Read me 'The Tar 
Baby,’ please, Dena.” 

“ Oh, William T., dear, do please be quiet so sister 
can read. “ Here,” handing him a small battered 
book, “ you read your ‘ Peter Rabbit ’ aloud to me 
and we’ll laugh at the funny places together.” 

On Monday Ardena brought home “ Huckleberry 
Finn.” 

“ Let’s read it together,” suggested Alonzo who 
was wiping the dishes with a long towel up in front 
of him. “ Lenny Slocum’s been reading it and he 
said he nearly died it was so funny. I liked ' Tom 
Sawyer ’ and I’ve been wanting to read 1 Huck 
Finn.’ ” 

“ Goodness no, Alonzo,” answered Ardena, spat- 
tering dishwater about her in her mad haste to be 


HOUSEWORK AND READING 139 

through with the dishes. “ Get father to read it 
with you some time. I've only got about a week left 
to do my reading in now. Guess I’ll leave that fry- 
ing-pan until morning. Or, here, I can stick it in 
the oven and use it again. I can’t read so fast when 
I read aloud.” 

That evening, reading by the light from the sit- 
ting room lamp, Ardena glanced up suddenly from 
her book, recalled from floating with Jim and Huck 
down the Mississippi on the raft to her present sur- 
roundings. On the other side of the table, sewing 
a button on his vest, sat her father. But Ardena 
read on. About nine the wick in the kerosene lamp 
burned low and bright and then began to sputter. 

“Well, well, well,” said Mr. Marsh irritably, as 
he was mending up a rent in his coat, shoving a 
darning needle through the cloth in the most awk- 
ward of manners, “ lamps are never filled any more. 
Maybe you’d better leave off with your reading for 
a little while and give more attention to the house- 
work.” 

But Ardena, absorbed in her book, continued read- 
ing steadily on. “ I’ll try to fill all of the lamps to- 
morrow. Guess the kitchen lamp has a little left 
in it.” 

Mr. Marsh brought in the kitchen lamp. It was 


140 


DENA 


empty. Without another word Mr. Marsh took up 
the two lamps and went out into the kitchen. He 
brought in the kerosene can from the shed, filled 
the lamp and came back to the sitting room. Ar- 
dena was bent over, reading by the light from the 
coals on the hearth. “ Haven’t been able to see 
through a lamp chimney for a month,” he remarked 
in exasperation as he tried to thread the needle in 
the dim light that shone through the smoky chimney. 
“ Come, come, Ardena, now this thing has got to 
stop for awhile.” 

“ Yes,” Ardena answered, turning another page. 
“ My, but isn’t ‘ Huck Finn ’ just the funniest book 
you ever did read ! Carlton says I’ll like ‘ The 
Pickwick Papers,’ too. Oh, oh,” holding her side 
with laughter, “ but isn’t it perfectly killing where 
Huck falls off the raft. Miss Miller says I’ll like 
* Innocents Abroad ’ and ought to read it now while 
I’m so interested in Mark Twain. Miss Miller 
thinks I’m making excellent progress with my read- 
ing.” 

The next morning when Ardena met Annabel 
Dilly in the cloakroom at school Annabel asked her 
how she was getting along with her reading. 

“ Six,” Ardena replied. 


HOUSEWORK AND READING 141 

“ Em just one ahead,” Annabel answered. 
“ Carlton and I are equal.” 

A couple of evenings later Ardena arrived home 
from the library with “ Two Years before the 
Mast ” under her arm. As she opened the door a 
cloud of dust greeted her. Alonzo, broom in hand, 
was sweeping the sitting room. No windows were 
open and nothing was covered up. 

“ For goodness’ sake, Alonzo, what are you do- 
ing?” Ardena demanded in surprise. “What do 
you want to stir up all this dust for? Here, give 
the broom to me and I’ll get this dust out of the way. 
I can’t stop to do housework for a few days longer 
but I’ll clean house at the end of the month. I am 
going to do that reading ! ” 

But Alonzo kept steadily on, a frown on his face 
and his arms shoving the big broom back and forth 
with short, jerky, stubby movements. “ You’ve 
been saying for a week that you’d clean up this room 
and you haven’t done it. Lenny Slocum’s coming 
over this evening and bring his new game he got for 
Christmas. His mother always keeps things clean 
and put away. She isn’t all the time reading books, 
either. She can bake cookies as good as grandma’s, 
too.” Alonzo continued with the sweeping, jabbing 


142 


DENA 


the broom around the legs of the stove in a manner 
truly threatening. 

“ Well, I can’t help it,” Ardena retorted quickly. 
“ I’ve got to do this outside reading this month and 
you know it. I’m going to come out one of the first 
in the class, too. I like to please Miss Miller and 
I’m going to stick it out.” 

“ Well, I’d like to do some reading myself,” was 
Alonzo’s equally quick retort, as he swept the dust 
on towards the kitchen door. “ Lenny’s got a new 
Trowbridge book, but I haven’t had any time to read 
it. Lenny doesn’t have to sweep floors and wipe 
dishes and mend his own stockings. Guess Mrs. 
Shute’s been noticing how ragged we’re getting 
’cause she was just in and got the mending — great 
big armful. Where’s that dustpan, anyway? ” 

On the home stretch Ardena hoped to hurry 
through “ The Vicar of Wakefield.” It took a lot 
of planning to get the reading done, but by omitting 
home lessons and reading on the way to and from 
school and keeping a book in front of her while do- 
ing the dishes she was making good progress. Ar- 
dena even came out a day ahead and on the very last 
evening she sat up until twelve to finish “ The Man 
Without a Country.” 


HOUSEWORK AND READING 143 

On the last day of the month Ardena, really rather 
limp and weary, though seemingly satisfied, arrived 
home late from school. She opened the front door. 
What a fresh and clean smell! And what a clean 
and orderly sitting room! And, apparently giving 
the last touches, was William T., a big dustcloth in 
his hand which he was mopping around seemingly 
dustless furniture. Ardena went slowly on out to 
the kitchen. With her own big apron tied about his 
neck Alonzo stood at the kitchen sink washing 
dishes. At the kitchen table was Mr. Marsh. On 
top of a newspaper spread out on the table stood a 
row of lamps with tops off. Mr. Marsh was filling 
the lamps. Ardena stopped short. She said noth- 
ing. And nothing was said to Ardena. She went 
tiptoeing out into the middle of the large wet kitchen 
floor. And there on her hands and knees by the 
kitchen door was Mrs. Shute scrubbing the floor. 

“ Oh ! ” gasped Ardena. “ Oh ! Why — why 
— Mrs. Shute ! ” 

Mrs. Shute sank back on her knees and looked 
at Ardena. There was really a twinkle in the eyes 
that were puckered into a frown. “ I don’t like to 
seem to be interfering,” she explained. “ But to be 
honest, I kept away ’bout as long as I could. Books 


144 


DENA 


are nice and you ought to want to please your teach- 
ers. But a clean house is nice, too, according to 
my way of thinking.” 

Mrs. Shute moved her pail and commenced on a 
new section of the kitchen floor. Mr. Marsh con- 
tinued filling lamps. Then he screwed on the tops. 
Alonzo was still splashing at the kitchen sink. Only 
William T., still making energetic flourishes with his 
dustcloth, made a further remark. 

“ We been very busy,” he called out. “ And we 
been very dirty, too. Mrs. Shute says we have.” 

Ardena continued to stand in the middle of the 
damp floor. 

“ Well, Ardena, how did you come out with your 
list of books? ” her father finally questioned. 

“ Carlton and Annabel and I all read the same 
and led the class,” she said after awhile, rather sub- 
dued in voice and manner. “ Miss Miller said she 
was proud of us,” rather slowly and thoughtfully. 
“ But — well — well — I guess maybe housekeep- 
ing — good housekeeping — is nice. I think — 
maybe — I’ve read enough books to last — a long 
time.” Then, her face brightening with a flash, she 
pulled off her cloak and cap with a jerk. “ I know 
what I’m going to do. I’m going right straight to 
work and I’m going to cook a perfectly de-li-cious 


HOUSEWORK AND READING 145 

feast. And Mrs. Shute is to stay and eat with us, 
too/’ 

William T. was fast making his way to the 
kitchen. “ Make us a nice drippy cake like Budge’s 
mother makes, Dena, please do. We’re very, very 
sick and tired of bread and butter meals.” 


CHAPTER IX 


ARDENA A NURSE 

Ardena dropped in at Mrs. Shute’s one afternoon 
in February on her way home from school. Ardena 
was quite excited. 

“ Mrs. Shute,” she began, as she sat down in the 
little rocker with the gay cretonne cushions that al- 
ways stood by the side of the big, cheerful hardcoal 
burner, “ what do you think is going to happen now ? 
We’re going to have a basket ball team in our high 
school. Miss Miller is organizing one. The boys 
have had one all year with Mr. Jackson as coach. 
I’m to be left guard on the first team. She called 
ten of the girls into her classroom to-day and told 
us about it. The girls have been wanting to organ- 
ize one. Miss Miller played basket ball when she 
was in college.” 

Mrs. Shute was knitting — and it seemed to Ar- 
dena that the mitten looked very much like another 
small brown one. Ardena colored a little — she 
really did wish that they didn’t have so much trouble 
146 


ARDENA A NURSE 


147 


over home keeping track of William TVs mittens. 
“ Well, now, that’s nice,” she said, as she stooped 
to reach the ball of yarn that had rolled from her 
slickly starched white apron to the red and green 
carpet. “ Girls need that sort of thing just as much 
as boys. I’m real glad you were asked, Ardena.” 

“ We’re to begin practice as soon as we get our 
suits. Miss Miller gave us our directions.” Ar- 
dena drew a wadded bit of paper from her coat 
pocket and read it over. “We must each have a 
pair of gym shoes and a middy blouse and a pair of 
bloomers. Miss Miller said that we could get the 
shoes down at either shoe store for two dollars and 
the middy would be a dollar and the cloth for the 
bloomers should be very dark blue serge or flannel 
— she would prefer serge. She said to buy a pat- 
tern and to follow directions in making them.” 

“ Well, well,” Mrs. Shute’s needles were clicking 
again, “ I suppose you’ll want them right away. I 
think maybe, Ardena, you’d better be a little careful 
in buying the cloth for the bloomers. You get your 
pattern and I’ll get some samples of cloth when I 
go down to the bank to-morrow. And I think we 
can make one of those middy blouse things, too. 
You’d better let me go down and look at one of them 
in the store and then I can tell you what kind of cloth 


DENA 


148 

to get and how much. As likely as not we can make 
one for thirty-five cents.” 

“ All right,” Ardena joyfully consented. “ I’ve 
got three dollars that grandmother gave me for 
Christmas to buy something I really needed. Father 
will give me the rest. Only, of course, winter 
months are always hard-up months at our house. 
Do wish we ever could have a few real easy, lots-of- 
money months. Wonder what it would feel like.” 
Ardena had grown quiet. 

" Oh, well, Ardena, you’d better always remember 
the good old Quaker saying that you’re thankful that 
things are as well with you as they are. If you 
want those things right away, you’d better drop in 
again after school to-morrow night and we’ll talk 
over what we’ve found out. We can make the 
things evenings if you can come over to help me. 
How’s your grandma ? She doesn’t seem to pick up 
very fast after her sick spell this winter, does she? 
I suppose your Aunt Lib is nearly worked to death. 
I’ve got a loaf of brown bread baked fresh this 
afternoon that’ll taste good for your supper.” 

In due time the gym shoes were purchased, the 
bloomers and the blouse finished and Ardena was 
arriving home from school on Monday, Wednesday 
and Friday at six o’clock. Ardena talked forward 


ARDENA A NURSE 


149 


and guard and center and fouls and scores until the 
family felt satiated with the subject. Alonzo’s in- 
terest in stories and accounts of baseball seemed to 
wane and even William T. planned springtime diver- 
sions other than football with Budge Cracker. Mr. 
Marsh was patiently quiet on the subject and en- 
dured. Mrs. Shute began again taking home the 
weekly ironing for the Marsh family. Black Lot- 
tie, down by the creek, had been coming for the fam- 
ily washing for some weeks. 

“ Father,” Ardena announced at supper one even- 
ing, “ we’re getting ready for an open game. Our 
two teams are going to play together in the school 
gym some Friday night soon and we’re going to 
spend the money we make for a new ball — an extra 
fine one. We’re dead in earnest when we play now. 
Miss Miller is awfully strict and she calls a foul 
whenever she can. Yes, yes, yes, William T., 
Dena’ll get you another glass of milk. Why don’t 
you eat your bread and butter? You want water. 
Well, here it is. Don’t be such a cross boy, honey.” 

The next evening Ardena arrived home early from 
school. She must do the ironing without fail. She 
built up the kitchen fire, pushed the irons to the front 
of the stove, put on her kitchen apron and went into 
the pantry for the basket of clothes. It was gone 


DENA 


150 

again. Ardena, provoked, went straight out the 
back door and was on her way over to Mrs. Shute’s 
back door when she saw Leta Lindsey coming in 
the front way. Ardena ran back. Leta had come 
over to talk with Ardena about the project on hand 
for getting Miss Miller a wonderful, big, beautiful 
bouquet and presenting it to her on the night of the 
basket-ball game. 

“ How perfectly fine! ” exclaimed Ardena. “ Of 
course I’ll give a quarter. I’m glad you thought 
about it, Leta.” 

William T. was sidling in through the kitchen 
doorway. 

“ Goodness, but isn’t William T.’s face red!” 
Leta remarked, as she was buttoning up her coat be- 
fore going out the door. “ Well, I’ll tell Elise Hop- 
kins what you say about roses. I think we’d better 
all get together and talk the thing over.” 

Ardena had gone out on the steps to see Leta off. 
William T. was still leaning poutingly against the 
door-casing, when Ardena came shivering inside, 
and was saying peevishly, “ My face is not red, is it, 
Dena? My face is never red, is it, Dena? ” 

But Ardena was busy thinking about making a 
gingerbread for supper and Mrs. Shute was bring- 
ing back the basket of freshly ironed clothes and so 


ARDENA A NURSE 


151 

William T. went over to the lounge and lay down 
and nobody thought further of William T. 

“ I’m just ashamed of myself to let you do this 
ironing, Mrs. Shute, and I won’t ever, ever let you 
do it again,” Ardena was saying in mortified cha- 
grin. “ After this basket-ball game is over I’m go- 
ing to settle down to housework and school work and 
I’m never, never going to do another thing but 
housework and school work until I’m through 
school.” 

The next morning and the next noon Ardena hur- 
ried a petulant William T. ofif to school. “ I do 
wish you wouldn’t be so cross,” she pleaded with 
him. 

“ I’m not cross,” he refuted in straight contradic- 
tion. “I’m never cross.” Then tears came into 
William T.’s bright eyes and so Ardena kissed his 
red cheeks. “Aren’t you well?” she inquired. 

“ ’Course I am,” William T. stoutly asserted. 

“ Well, you be a good boy, because I’ve got to 
practise basket ball this evening and can’t be home 
early, but I’ll take good care of you to-night.” 

Ardena ran home from school that night. It was 
five-thirty when she reached home. And in front 
of that slanting, bald looking, paint dimmed house 
that she thought she knew so very, very well she 


152 


DENA 


stopped short and gasped in a big, breathless gasp of 
astonishment. SCARLET FEVER — in big black 
letters — on a glaring red card — tacked near the 
door of that house! 

Ardena rushed pell-mell around the house to the 
back door. Out on the doorstep she was met by 
Mrs. Shute. Mrs. Shute was holding the door shut. 
“ You mustn’t go in, Ardena,” she said. “ It’s 
William T. Doc Stubbs has just been here and he’s 
asleep on the lounge now and I’m going to stay and 
take care of him. We think he’s going to have a 
light case and will probably be in bed only a few 
days. He has a fever now and he’s badly broken 
out. I heard him crying here at the back door and 
I ran on over. Alonzo hasn’t come yet and we’ve 
sent for your father so we can make our arrange- 
ments.” 

Ardena continued to look steadily at Mrs. Shute 
without saying a word. So Mrs. Shute hurried on, 
“ I’ve been making my plans real fast and I think 
I know how we’d better manage. If they hadn’t 
quarantined this place I would have taken him on 
over to my house. But he’s got to stay here now. 
So you and your father and Alonzo can get your 
things and go right on over to my house and live 
there. I’ll stay here with William T. I’ll think of 


ARDENA A NURSE 


153 


things of mine that I’ll need from time to time, but 
I’ll have to get them as I think about them. I’m real 
muddled, things coming as fast as they have.” 

“ I’m going to take care of William T. myself.” 
Ardena stood up straight and tall. “ He’s my baby 
— mother left him to me.” Ardena put her hand 
on the kitchen door knob. 

Mrs. Shute detained her with a gesture. “ Now, 
Ardena, I know you’re real impulsive, so don’t go 
and do anything rash before we talk it over. I’m 
used to taking care of sick folks and I know how 
to manage.” 

“ Doc Stubbs will show me,” Ardena answered, 
her mouth drawn into a very straight line. “ I took 
care of mother. Besides, this is my affair.” 

“ But let’s just talk it over, Ardena.” Mrs. Shute 
was making every appeal she could think of and 
making them as fast as she could. “ There’s not 
one speck of use of your giving up your school work. 
You’ll miss a month, too, and you have all you can 
do to keep the housework and your school work go- 
ing when you are at it every day steady. And I’ve 
got time going to waste on my hands.” 

“ I can study at home,” calmly answered Ardena. 

“ You might catch it yourself. It’s real con- 
tagious. Then just think how much trouble it will 


154 


DENA 


make for all of us. I had it once when I was a girl, 
so I’m not afraid.” 

“ Well,” Ardena hesitated for a moment only, “ it 
won’t be any harder for me than for William T.” 

“ But — but what are your father and Alonzo go- 
ing to do ? ” 

“ Mrs. Shute,” Ardena spoke with some decision, 
“this isn’t a question of what we want to do; we 
must do what is best for William T.” 

“ And there’s your basket-ball game, too. We’ve 
got all of your things ready now; they’re depending 
on you to play in that game and Miss Miller will be 
real disappointed if you don’t do your part.” 

Ardena was quiet. Finally she said, and she said 
it slowly, “ I’ll be disappointed — and I’ve been dis- 
appointed so many times, too. And Miss Miller 
says that I’m a strong guard. But — but there are 
two substitutes. Letty Adams, with more practice, 
could take my place and do well. And she’s anxious 
to get on the team and play in that game. But — 
but—” 

William T. was crying — a faint, peevish cry. 
Ardena wrenched open the door. 

“ Ardena Marsh, you stay right there until your 
father gets here and tells us what’s best to be done. 
I—” 


ARDENA A NURSE 


155 


But Ardena had the kitchen door open and was 
inside the house. “ Dena, read Willy T. 4 The Tar 
Baby/ ” came in a fretful cry from the depths of 
the old carpet lounge by the fire in the sitting room. 
In a moment Ardena was kneeling beside him. 

Ardena took care of William T., Mrs. Shute took 
care of Alonzo, and Mr. Marsh went down to stay 
with Doc Stubbs in his big, dreary, empty old house 
on Main Street. It was a long, long, slow, slow 
month for Ardena and William T. For the first 
few days William T. was rather a sick boy, but after 
a week he improved rapidly and was up and around 
the house in a couple of weeks. It was the long 
getting-well period that nearly drove Ardena to dis- 
traction. After school Alonzo always came over 
in front of the window and told them all of the 
school news. He also came daily to the back door 
and left something on the doorstep from Mrs. Shute. 
And Ardena began to notice, too, that Alonzo had 
a scrubbed and cleaned-up look that it had seemed 
impossible for him to acquire while under her care. 
His clothes were mended, patched, cleaned and 
pressed. And it seemed, too, that Alonzo began to 
take a pride in his appearance and to make an effort 
to be careful with his clothes. His hair was glossily 
brushed and his finger nails were trimmed and 


DENA 


156 

cleaned. His shoes were kept well patched and pol- 
ished. Ardena began to think Alonzo a very good- 
looking little brother, a brother to be proud of. 

She tried to emulate the shining Alonzo in taking 
care of William T., and she even mended and cleaned 
and pressed his little suits and washed his hair when 
Doc Stubbs gave her permission and cleaned his 
finger nails and polished his little shoes. She in- 
vented games to be played while doing these things 
and made up stories to amuse him. She grew quite 
clever in fitting the story to the occasion and weav- 
ing in the moral so indirectly as to keep the waver- 
ing interest of the easily distracted listener. 

Doc Stubbs, square and sandy and gruff, came in 
once a day and he always amused William T. with 
jokes and pictures and stories. Mrs. Shute began 
giving Mr. Marsh and Doc Stubbs their evening meal 
and Sunday dinner and Ardena watched them go 
and come. In a short time Ardena began to notice 
a difference in the appearance of the two men. Doc 
Stubbs, who had always been noticeably negligent as 
to his appearance, (he was a confirmed old bachelor 
and eschewed the society of women as much as pos- 
sible) began to have a brushed and pressed appear- 
ance that at first made this old time, eccentric friend 
seem almost a stranger to her. Ardena tactfully 


ARDENA A NURSE 


157 


omitted any suggestions relating to the change and 
the doctor mentioned Mrs. Shute as little as possible. 
But Ardena knew that Mrs. Shute’s kindness would 
meet with a big inward thanks. Doc was like a neg- 
lected boy and a little petting was showing good re- 
sults. Also, with rather red-faced interest, Ardena 
saw that her father’s old overcoat had been mended 
and pressed and that the buttons were all in place. 
Mr. Marsh also took on a well-groomed appearance. 
And on the board that they were getting over at 
Mrs. Shute’s it seemed to Ardena that all three as- 
sumed a sleek and satisfied air that well became 
them. 

One day when it was getting warmer and William 
T. was fast becoming a well boy she brought all of 
her clothes down from her room and she wheeled 
out the machine and oiled it and then set to work 
to tidy up her own wardrobe. She studied her les- 
sons every day and she helped William T. with his. 
Notes came frequently from her school comrades 
and Annabel Dilly painstakingly kept her informed 
as to her lessons. Miss Miller wrote her notes fre- 
quently and said that she was proud of Ardena after 
all. They had postponed the game a couple of 
weeks so that Letty Adams could get in some prac- 
tice. They missed Ardena, Miss Miller added, but 


158 


DENA 


she felt that Ardena had done the right thing in 
thinking first of her little brother and the game (as 
they had arranged things) would not now be seri- 
ously handicapped. Letters came also from grand- 
mother and Aunt Lib, and Uncle Logan came in 
twice a week with things from the farm for Ardena 
and William T. Grandmother was still very deli- 
cate and Aunt Lib was busy and the roads were melt- 
ing and getting muddy and so Ardena knew that the 
kindnesses from these relatives meant many sacri- 
fices in time and strength. 

At times the house became unendurable to Ar- 
dena and she used to walk up and down the walk 
and around the house and then she felt better and 
came inside and decided to stick it out without say- 
ing one single word that would sound the least bit 
like complaining. But sometimes Ardena’s spirit al- 
most boiled up within her. The gym shoes and the 
middy blouse and the bloomers all hung in her closet. 
Oh, dear — dear — dear ! Another long week of it 
and William T. perfectly well and getting so rest- 
less that she couldn’t hold him inside the house any 
longer! Alonzo seemed to be immensely happy in 
his new home and went whistling down the street 
when he set out from Mrs. Shute’s door. On Sun- 


ARDENA A NURSE 


159 


day Mrs. Shute and Alonzo and Mr. Marsh and Doc 
Stubbs went past the house on their way to church. 
They all waved at Ardena and William T. in the 
window, and Alonzo ran up to the -door with a par- 
cel. Alonzo had a new suit and Mr. Marsh and Doc 
Stubbs were in their very best and this very best was 
so conspicuously well cared for. Later, they all 
went back to the house and Ardena knew all about 
the good dinner they would be served and how 
dainty the serving would be, too. Ardena was about 
to weep with lonesomeness and weariness. But two 
big tears were already running down William T.’s 
fat cheeks and so she played- another game of check- 
ers with him. 

On the last Friday of this long month was to occur 
the basket-ball game. Leta had written her a note 
about it and Annabel Dilly had sent her minute de- 
tails concerning the coming event. Ardena went to 
bed early that night. And she wept big tears of dis- 
appointment. She got up late the next morning and 
when she came downstairs Alonzo was whistling for 
her. She went to the door and there stood Alonzo 
with a wonderful bouquet of American Beauty roses 
in his arms. 

“ Miss Miller sent you her flowers,” he called out 


i6o 


DENA 


joyously. “ And Doc Stubbs says we don’t have to 
be very careful ’cause the sign’s coming down on 
Sunday.” 

Ardena clapped her hands together in wonder 
and delight. Yes, the flowers were the flowers that 
had been presented to Miss Miller on the night of 
the game. And she sent such a funny little note to 
Ardena along with the flowers. 

“ Got something else,” Alonzo called out. He 
drew his hand from behind his back and held up a 
big store-wrapped package. “ It’s candy,” he said. 
“ I guessed it by the rattle. It’s from Mr. Jackson. 
He brought the things over late last night, but your 
light was out so I waited until morning. I’m go- 
ing to help Mrs. Shute clean out her cellar to-day. 
We’ve had a mighty good time over there. ’Course 
we’re glad we’re coming home. But, gee, Mrs. 
Shute can cook ! ” 

And so Ardena spent the day housecleaning and 
baking and getting ready for the welcome old order 
of things. 


CHAPTER X 

VISITING GRANDMOTHER 

It was the middle of the muddy month of March. 

Seated in a kitchen chair in her blue calico apron 
one Saturday morning Ardena was reading aloud a 
note that had just come from Aunt Lib. When Ar- 
dena finished the note her eyes were quite misty, 
Alonzo was frowning a very deep frown and Wil- 
liam T. was saying, “ But what makes my grandma 
sick, I’d like to know.” 

The note had said that grandmother was getting 
no better, her cough was still bad and she didn’t seem 
to be regaining her strength. Aunt Lib had said 
further that grandmother was so blue and discour- 
aged, and so homesick to see Ardena and Alonzo 
and William T. that Uncle Logan would be in for 
them just as soon as he could possibly get to town 
with a buggy. 

Suddenly Ardena jumped to her feet and threw 
off her kitchen apron with a jerk. “ I’m going out 
161 


DENA 


162 

to see grandmother if I have to walk,” she an- 
nounced. 

“ And so am I,” instantly repeated Alonzo. 

“ I am, too,” echoed William T. 

Now it was very raw and wintry and blustery and 
gloomy this Saturday morning in March when the 
Marsh children thus expressed themselves. And it 
was muddy — that thick, deep, lumpy mud that 
made the unpaved roads about Arcadia the most im- 
passable roads one can well imagine. 

“ I haven’t seen grandmother since last fall,” said 
Ardena. 

“ We couldn’t go out there for Christmas,” 
Alonzo recollected. 

“ And then I had the scarlet fever,” put in Wil- 
liam T. 

“ Well, then, we’ll go,” definitely decided Ardena. 
“ Uncle Logan can’t get into town on account of the 
roads and we can’t get out to see grandmother be- 
cause Uncle Logan can’t come in for us. Besides, 
grandmother needs us; she’d come to us mighty 
quick if she were well and we were sick. It’s five 
miles down the track. But we can walk that all 
right. I wish I’d thought about going sooner and 
we could have asked father for the money and ridden 
up to Center Point on the five o’clock freight. But 


VISITING GRANDMOTHER 163 

then we would have been three miles away from the 
farm. Now we’ll have about a mile to walk when 
we leave the track. I don’t know whether we can 
make it or not, though,” Ardena was really think- 
ing aloud. 

“ Five miles isn’t very long when you keep walk- 
ing right along,” Alonzo was eagerly explaining. 
“ I’ve got my rubber boots. And I can help you 
and William T. over the muddiest places. We’ll 
walk along the side of the road on the grass when we 
leave the track. Maybe it isn’t as muddy in the 
country as it is here in town.” 

“Let’s go and see grandmother,” insisted William 
T. “ I want to see my grandma the most of any- 
body in the world. I’ll put on my rubbers. I 
haven’t seen my grandmother for ever and ever and 
ever so long — months and months. I guess maybe 
it’s about a whole year — or two whole years — or 
maybe — ” 

“ She isn’t getting any stronger, either,” Ardena 
was saying, seemingly oblivious to William T.’s 
reckless reckoning of time. “ And it will be another 
week anyway before Uncle Logan can get in with a 
team — and maybe two or three weeks. Father’s 
gone over to Mapleton by this time and won’t be 
back until night so I can’t ask him. I don’t believe 


DENA 


164 

he would care if we went, if he knew how much 
grandmother really needed us.” 

“ Then let’s go, of course,’” urged Alonzo, 
“ We’ve never stayed away from there so long in our 
lives before. I want to see grandma and Aunt Lib 
and all the children and — ” 

“ And Shep,” excitedly added William T. 
“ Please, Dena, please let us go. I got my rubbers. 
I’m big now and I can walk miles and miles and 
miles and miles and never get the least little speck 
tired and — ” 

And so they started off. 

It was a branch road that led out past grand- 
mother’s farm. And the track of this branch road 
was not in very good condition in the best of 
weather. For the first mile the Marsh children 
really enjoyed the adventure. They just tramped 
steadily on and had little to say, for they had about 
all they could do to attend to the walking, since step- 
ping from tie to tie makes a long step and in be- 
tween the ties it was soggy and in some places 
muddy. Occasionally they came across puddles of 
water that spread over the ties. Also, this was a 
March day and the raw wind blew and it blew and 
it blew. It fairly tore and pulled at their clothes 
and twisted and flapped and slapped their coats about 


VISITING GRANDMOTHER 165 

them and threatened every moment to snatch off 
their hats and send them spinning off across the 
fields beyond the barbed-wire fences. Alonzo could 
balance himself on the rail for a considerable stretch 
of time, but William T. was too unsteady for the 
rail and too short for the long steps from tie to tie 
and too slow to make very satisfactory progress. 
In the second mile of the journey William T. began 
to lag and in the third mile he became downright 
troublesome. Ardena began to wish that she had 
never attempted such a preposterous undertaking as 
this of getting William T. out to the farm. She 
wished that she had left William T. with Mrs. Shute. 

In the third mile they came to a little bridge that 
spanned a small creek now choked with a wide 
stream of foaming water. They sat down on the 
rail to rest and William T. forgot his weariness in 
watching this rushing little stream. Off in the dis- 
tance on the bare hilltops the big shadows cast by the 
sailing clouds went swinging on over the rolling 
prairie. But a big puff of white smoke and a shrill 
whistle cut short this pleasant little rest and they hur- 
ried down off the bridge. The road at the side of 
the track was low and muddy and William T. lost his 
rubber. Alonzo rescued it just as the big engine 
rounded the curve in the distance. Then all three 


DENA 


1 66 

stood huddled together on a little knoll while the 
freight train with its ninety and nine cars (Alonzo 
counted them) was pulled clattering past them. 
Alonzo had become interested in the counting of the 
cars, but William T. clung to Ardena. “ I didn’t 
know miles were so long,” he said, as he stolidly 
watched Alonzo wave a friendly hand at the train- 
men. “ Only half of me got rested.” 

“ Miles aren’t long,” refuted Alonzo, as the train 
rumbled on off across the bridge and he made ready 
to carry William T. back to the track. “ Besides, 
we want to see grandma. And you and Charlie’ll 
have lots of fun playing with Shep. You can help 
Annie gather the eggs. You can’t ever be a soldier 
like grandfather was and fight in the Civil War if 
you don’t learn to walk without getting tired right 
away.” 

“ I’m not tired right away,” William T. stoically 
asserted, as he braced himself again. “ I want to 
see grandma just as much as you do, too.” 

Ardena took hold of one of William T.’s hands 
and Alonzo the other and between them they pulled 
him on into the fourth mile. In the fifth and last 
mile Ardena carried him and then Alonzo carried 
him and then they steadied him on the rail and then 
they pulled him along again and then they carried 


VISITING GRANDMOTHER 167 

him on a seat made by their four hands and then 
they stopped and rested and began it all over again. 

Finally, long past noon, hungry, footsore, weary 
and cold they reached the road that led away from 
the track and on a mile and more to the farm. And, 
oh, such a road ! Ardena, looking at it, was heart- 
sick. The great black folds of mud looked to be a 
foot deep and the grass along the edges of the road 
seemed to offer no better footing, for the ground was 
low and level clear up to the fences. The road 
looked like one broad, black, wrinkled ribbon stretch- 
ing on as far as the eye could see. Alonzo put his 
hands deep down in his pockets and gave a low 
whistle. William T. was too completely tired out to 
offer a suggestion. Ardena was about ready to 
weep. 

“ Well,” said Alonzo finally, “ I’ve got to manage 
this thing myself. Tve got on rubber boots so I 
can make it. You and William T. will have to stay 
here while I go and get Uncle Logan to come back 
on horseback for you. Here,” as he waded man- 
fully off to the barbed-wire fence, “ I’ll try and fix 
you a seat so you can get rested a little.” Alonzo 
squashed off to a small bank, climbed up it, rolled a 
couple of stray stones together, pulled a board loose 
from an old fence and made a seat. “ Now,” as 


1 68 


DENA 


he waded back, “ you come on, Ardena, and I’ll 
carry William T., and you two sit here until I get 
back. ,, 

Of course, Alonzo, staggering up the bank with 
the heavy William T., dropped him squarely in the 
middle of the muddiest place. Ardena, now up the 
bank, lent a helping hand and succeeded in getting 
William T. again on his feet. His sorry plight now 
added the last straw to his burden of misery and he 
buried his sobs and his tears in Ardena’s skirt. 
“ Don’t cry, William T.,” Alonzo entreated. “ Just 
think how glad grandma’s going to be to see you. 
She’s done a lot for you and you ought to be willing 
to do a little something for her. I’ll go and get 
Uncle Logan to come and get you and you can ride 
back on old Nellie and we’ll all be together again 
with grandma.” 

So William T. stopped crying and Ardena drew 
him close up to her on the improvised (and rather 
unsteady) seat and Alonzo set off. They watched 
him trudge off along the squashy roadside path, 
painfully pulling one heavy boot after the other until 
he was a speck in the distance. 

Was there ever in all this world such a long and 
dreary two hours of waiting? It was chilly and 
William T. grew cold and hungry, and tired of sit- 


VISITING GRANDMOTHER 169 

ting still. She drew him close up to her to warm 
him, she talked to him about grandmother, she had 
him guess all the things that Aunt Lib would have 
for supper and then she had him looking clear off 
down the road for the first appearance of Uncle 
Logan. He grew tired again and he grew cold 
again and he grew hungry again. His references 
to the completely empty state of his stomach became 
annoyingly frequent. Ardena was worried, too. 
What if something should happen to Alonzo? 
What if they should have to spend the night in that 
lonely, dreary spot? Once Ardena gave William T. 
a sharp reproof for his many and varied complaints. 
Then William T. wept afresh and Ardena kissed 
him again and once more they looked ’way, ’way 
down the road for Uncle Logan. 

Finally, Uncle Logan did come. Clear off in the 
distance they saw him, astride of the old white horse, 
Nellie, who was picking her way back and forth 
along the muddy road and lifting her feet high from 
the squashy puddles she plunged into. Ardena felt 
more like crying than laughing and William T. for- 
got his weariness and stood up and waved his hands 
and gave one glad hoot after the other. And be- 
hind the white horse was the old black horse, Billy. 
Uncle Logan waved his hand to them when he first 


170 


DENA 


spied them. And when he came up close to them his 
plain, homely face was filled with a glad smile of 
welcome. 

“ Well, well, well,” he exclaimed, “ so you came 
out afoot to see us! You wanted to see grand- 
mother so badly that you couldn’t wait any longer. 
I was coming in for you just as soon as I could get 
in with a team. How glad we’ll all be to see you ! 
And maybe you’ll cheer grandma up a bit. She’s 
been pretty blue lately. She doesn’t get very strong 
again and she’s not much like her old self. I think 
she’s been lonesome for you children, and it hurts 
her to think that she hasn’t been able to help you this 
winter. And Lib’s had her hands full with the 
housework and the children and mother. It’s been 
a pretty long, hard winter for us all. Yes, William 
T., you may sit up here and do my driving. That’s 
right, Ardena,” as he drew William T. up in front 
of him with Ardena’s help. “ And now you can 
get on Billy’s back when I lead him up close to that 
little hill yonder.” 

So the three went off down the muddy road to 
grandmother’s farm. William T. was too tired to 
be very loquacious and Ardena too relieved at being 
out of her predicament to be very talkative, either. 
It was a slow walk back the two miles, and evening 


VISITING GRANDMOTHER 


171 

was coming on as they turned in at the farm and 
went down the lane to the back of the house. 

Aunt Lib and the four children and Alonzo, mov- 
ing slowly in Uncle Logan’s big house slippers, came 
out to greet them. “ I’m glad you came, Ardena,” 
Aunt Lib said as she kissed her. “ I think you were 
real foolish to set off afoot but grandmother’s had 
such an extra blue spell to-day that I’ve been quite at 
my wit’s end to keep her encouraged. She hasn’t 
the strength to do much and so she gets discontented. 
She broke down and cried when poor Alonzo came 
into the kitchen completely tuckered out and said 
that you three wanted to see her so badly that you 
set off to walk here. She’s been talking about you 
so much and she’s been so lonely without you this 
winter that I thought I’d manage to get you out here 
some way if I could just get a minute to think. 
We’ve had a long, busy, anxious winter here and 
I’m glad to see spring coming. But come right on 
in and we’ll get you warmed up and some clean, dry 
clothes on you and give you something to eat. I 
guess I’d better see to William T. myself. I don’t 
want him to take cold.” 

When grandmother saw Ardena and William T. 
the tears ran down her cheeks and she put her apron 
over her eyes. Then Uncle Logan began making 


172 


DENA 


some funny remarks and Aunt Lib began giving Ar- 
dena directions about cleaning herself up and helping 
her with the supper. 

They had an extra good Saturday night supper in 
the big, warm cheerful kitchen. In the evening they 
sat for a little while about the stove in the sitting 
room, William T. asleep in grandmother’s arms and 
Ardena on one side of her chair and Alonzo on the 
other. Uncle Logan had telephoned in to tell Mr. 
Marsh, when he returned, that the children were 
safe at the farm and that they would stay until 
Monday morning when he would take them by 
horseback over to the station at Center Point, the 
little town some three miles beyond. 

Sunday dawned warm and springlike. Aunt Lib 
prepared a delicious chicken dinner and Ardena set 
the table in the sitting room with the very best china 
and linen. Grandmother sat in her rocking chair in 
the bay window and William T. and Alonzo hov- 
ered near her, telling her all the things that had hap- 
pened to them during the winter and about their 
school work, and running errands for her and bring- 
ing their playthings near her when they played with 
the other children. William T. and Alonzo each 
had on a new waist that grandmother had made for 
them during the winter and Ardena wore a new 


VISITING GRANDMOTHER 


i/3 

black and white calico apron edged with a red scal- 
loped braid. 

In the afternoon Aunt Lib whispered to Ardena 
that grandmother seemed to be getting tired and Ar- 
dena had better help her upstairs to her room so that 
she could take her afternoon nap as usual. When 
up in the pleasant, old-fashioned south room that be- 
longed to grandmother the two sat down for a few 
moments in the sun-flooded front windows. 

“ Eve been doing more for you this winter than 
Eve let you know,” grandmother was saying. 
“ When William T. was sick with the scarlet fever 
and I couldn’t get in to you I thought about you day 
and night and the way I could best ease my mind was 
by working for you out here. Go in my closet there 
and bring me out that new comfort and quilt on the 
shelf. The quilt’s one that your mother started 
when she was a little girl and never finished and the 
comfort’s made from pieces from her things. Eve 
been wanting to make these things for you to keep 
for your very own, and since Eve not been of much 
account with the housework this winter I got busy 
on this work.” 

Then before Ardena had finally succeeded in per- 
suading grandmother to lie down for her much 
needed rest they had talked of old times and grand- 


174 


DENA 


mother had brought out a number of things that had 
belonged to her mother — some little old-fashioned 
photographs of her when a child and a cameo brooch 
and a plain band ring. 

“ You might as well have them now,” grand- 
mother had said. “ You’re getting old enough to 
know their value and to take care of them as well as 
I could. You’re — you’re getting more like your 
mother. She was tall — and — and she was quick 
and — capable — and good. Now you’re settling 
down a little more steady and getting over your 
harum-scarum ways, I think — you’ll be — like your 
mother.” 

Later, in the Sunday twilight, they sat around the 
glowing fire in the sitting room and grandmother 
told them stories about when she was a little girl in 
the early days on the farm and about the little New 
England towns where her mother and father grew 
up and about the home over in England where her 
mother’s mother and father had come from. 

In getting ready for bed that night Aunt Lib whis- 
pered to Ardena, “ I can’t tell you how glad I am that 
you’ve been here to-day. You three children have 
made grandmother so happy. We’re going to man- 
age — somehow — to have you out here every Sun- 
day — for a while.” 


CHAPTER XI 


LETA ENTERTAINS 

In May Leta entertained the sophomore class. 
And the guest of honor was Miss Miller. 

“ I want to do something for Miss Miller/’ Leta 
told Ardena on the way home from school. “ I do 
so adore her. And she is so fond of our class. 
Mother said that I should invite one of the gentle- 
men teachers for Miss Miller and so I invited Mr. 
Jackson. They’ve been going together all this year, 
you know.” 

“ Oh, yes,” Ardena quickly explained. “Of 
course everybody loves Miss Miller. And she is so 
lovely to everybody that of course she is nice to Mr. 
Jackson and he likes her as well as all of us do.” 

“ Well, do you know,” Leta further continued, 
“ that Carlton says that Mr. Jackson is fine when 
you come to know him? The boys have been get- 
ting mighty fond of him and have been taking him 
off with them on their walking hikes and to camp- 
fires and a lot of other affairs. And Adelbert says 
i75 


DENA 


176 

that he’s a better old scout than you’d think for. He 
had to work all of his way through college and so he 
just had to be a dig. And he really doesn’t mean it 
when he scowls — his eyes are weak from studying 
too late nights. The boys say, too, that he’s read 
everything you can think of and he’s got first class 
ideas and the boys have a lot of respect for his opin- 
ions. I think he’s much nicer looking since he parts 
his hair on the side and it doesn’t bristle up so stiff 
from his forehead.” 

“ Oh, I know he’s real smart — and real gentle- 
manly — and real kind, too. He’s done a lot of 
thoughtful things for us, and Alonzo and William 
T. are ever so fond of him. And yet you know that 
Miss Miller is so perfectly adorable that there isn’t 
a man anywhere that is really her equal. Of course 
she is kind to Mr. Jackson, as kind as she always is 
to everybody. From the way Miss Miller treats a 
person you can’t tell whether he’s her best friend or 
worst enemy. I’ve really been trying my very hard- 
est to be like Miss Miller this year. And next year 
I think I can be more like her still. I only do wish 
my hair was that glossy brown instead of this abom- 
inable red. I’m growing tall like Miss Miller and 
I’m trying to speak in that quiet voice which she does 
and even when I’m calling William T. in a hurry 


LETA ENTERTAINS 


177 

I'm getting so that I can remember not to shriek 
out in the awful shrill scream father abhor s.” 

“ Well, she truly is adorable. I only hope that 
she stays in the high school until I’m through.” 

“ Of course she will,” answered Ardena. “ She 
is so well liked she won’t lose her position. I sup- 
pose some time she’ll find a perfectly handsome 
man, a regular Prince Charming with light wavy 
hair and blue eyes and very graceful manners, and 
then she’ll get married. But I feel sure that we’ll 
have her as long as we need her. Why, I couldn’t 
think of studying English with anyone else. It’s so 
nice of your mother to let you entertain our class and 
Miss Miller! I can’t wait until the night. Miss 
Miller had the boys draw lots for the girls. Won- 
der who I’ll get.” 

The appearance that Ardena was to make on the 
night of the party was causing her considerable con- 
cern. And so the next evening she went over to 
Mrs. Shute’s house to talk to her about the material 
she was to purchase for her new dress. A light was 
burning in Mrs. Shute’s parlor and this fact rather 
surprised Ardena. But absorbed in the question of 
the prettiest material for this new dress Ardena went 
on up the walk and tapped on the front door. Ar- 
dena had come around the front way rather than the 


i7» 


DENA 


back since the back way at night was rather dark and 
uncertain. Ardena tapped on the front door and 
then opened the door slightly and called to Mrs. 
Shute. But she stopped short midway between the 
“ Mrs.” and the “ Shute.” Sitting in that front par- 
lor was Doc Stubbs. 

“ Oh, Mrs. Shute,” Ardena questioned quickly, 
“ you aren’t sick, are you? ” 

Mrs. Shute, dressed up in her gray silk with a 
white tie at her throat, blushed a girlish crimson 
blush, a blush as crimson as the bouquet of red roses 
in the green vase on the stand at her side. 

“ Come right on in, Ardena,” Mrs. Shute called 
hospitably. “ What’ve you got there — some sam- 
ples for your new dress ? I’m real glad you brought 
them over, because I’ve been thinking we’d better 
get to work on that dress before long. You want 
to look real pretty when you go over to the Lind- 
seys’. Mrs. Lindsey’s quite dressy herself and she’s 
always kept Leta dressed right up in the latest style. 
Now this here Persian lawn,” holding the sample up 
to the light, “ seems like a fine, firm piece. What 
did you say the price was ? ” 

And so Ardena soon felt right at home, despite 
the fact of the presence of Doc Stubbs in Mrs. 
Shute’s parlor on other than a professional visit. 


LETA ENTERTAINS 


179 


Meanwhile the doctor, stubby and red-faced and 
nervous, clothed now in a newly pressed suit and 
uncomfortable in a high collar, just frowned and 
squirmed and crossed one leg over the other. Ar- 
dena stayed until nine o’clock. 

“ Doc Stubbs was over there,” she remarked cas- 
ually to her father when she returned. “ How 
funny! ” 

Mr. Marsh glanced up from his magazine. 
“ Why, funny ? ” he asked with a twinkle in his eye. 

“ Well, I suppose that Mrs. Shute was so nice 
to him when William T. had the scarlet fever and 
she boarded and took care of all of you that he likes 
to go there now. But I never saw Doc just sit still 
and visit with a person before. He looks a little 
better since he takes more pains with his appearance. 
Mrs. Shute likes this piece, father. And you said 
that I could have the patent leather pumps, didn’t 
you? My, aren’t we glad you got that Mapleton 
contract, though ! This summer we’re going to fix 
up the house, aren’t we, father? Isn’t it nice to 
have a sort of plenty feeling? ” 

Ardena helped with the making of the dress as 
much as she could, sewing the lace and insertion on 
by hand, for the lace and insertion were narrow and 
inexpensive and Mrs. Shute said that sewing them 


i8o 


DENA 


on by hand would show off the lace to better ad- 
vantage. One very warm evening a few days later 
Ardena was up in her bedroom sewing away in the 
somewhat dim light that came through the some- 
what dim chimney. Alonzo and William T. were 
asleep in the next room and she could hear their 
regular breathing. Outside the open window was 
the cool and quiet darkness. 

Ardena grew sleepy, yawning long, deep yawns. 
Her eyes were tired. It must be ten o’clock. She 
wondered why her father didn’t come home from 
the office. Maybe he had come in and was reading 
down by the sitting room light. She finally folded 
up her work, put it on the bureau, handy for the next 
extra moment she could find, and went downstairs. 
It was dark. She went to the door and out on the 
porch, looking down the street for her father. 
There was a light burning in Mrs. Shute’s sitting 
room to the side of the house. Also there were 
voices on the front porch. Who could be calling 
on Mrs. Shute this late in the evening? Nine 
o’clock was bedtime for most of the neighborhood. 
Ardena turned back, lighted the lamp and began to 
straighten up the sitting room table, piling up books 
and papers and magazines. Presently her father 


came in. 


LETA ENTERTAINS 


181 


“ Oh,” she said, a little startled, “ I didn’t hear 
you coming down the street ! Who do you suppose 
has been calling on Mrs. Shute this late in the even- 
ing? I’m afraid that Mrs. Shute is cultivating late 
habits. Maybe it was old John Brown come over 
to see about some carpenter work she wants done. 
Is the back door locked, father ? ” 

“ I’ll see,” immediately responded Mr. Marsh. 
“ By the way, Ardena,” he called from the kitchen, 
“ Tve about made up my mind to get that new spring 
suit we were looking at Saturday. Work's coming 
in pretty steady now and I’m getting a little ahead.” 

“To be sure,” at once responded Ardena. 
“ You've worn your old shiny suit so long that it’s 
threadbare. Take your best suit for every day and 
get this new one for best. If we're prosperous, let’s 
look the part,” laughed Ardena. 

Her father, coming back into the sitting room, 
was smiling his quiet, whimsical smile. 

“ You’re a dandy, dear old father, anyway,” Ar- 
dena assured him as she gave him a big good-night 
kiss. “ It's your turn, without a doubt.” 

Ardena looked pretty on the night of the party. 
It was a simple dress, for while Mrs. Shute was a 
very neat seamstress she was not particularly artistic 
in her designs. It was made plenty large, too, to 


DENA 


182 

allow for shrinkage and growth, and the white rib- 
bon sash was tied in loose folds so as not to crush 
the ribbon any more than was necessary. But white 
was exceedingly becoming to Ardena with her red 
hair fluffed out about her face. And she wore her 
new patent leather pumps with buckles. Also, Ar- 
dena was intensely happy; and happiness was Ar- 
dena’s chief charm. 

Adelbert Hastings came for Ardena. Since there 
was a larger number of girls in the class than boys 
Adelbert brought Annabel Dilly along with him. 
Annabel wore a tight little dress that was rather old 
style. But Annabel’s wonderful two long braids of 
hair made Annabel attractive. Then, also, Annabel 
was so perfectly sweet and unselfish that everybody 
learned to like Annabel even if the liking was not 
spontaneous. 

It was a very formal party. The guests were 
ushered into the house by a little pink and white girl 
and they were directed to the upstairs room by an- 
other little pink and white girl. Downstairs was the 
receiving line and in the receiving line were Leta in 
soft pink silk and Mrs. Lindsey in white and Miss 
Miller in palest blue. Ardena felt ill at ease. She 
grew quiet and shy. Her own classmates did not 
look familiar to her. Even the teachers seemed out 


LETA ENTERTAINS 


183 


of their element and Ardena could not be natural 
with them. There were some friends of the Lind- 
seys there whom Ardena knew only by name. An- 
nabel fitted into these new surroundings with more 
ease than Ardena, and Adelbert was perfectly at 
home. Watching the easy and natural Adelbert, 
Ardena’s shyness began to leave her somewhat. 
Also Annabel made a number of tactful little 
manoeuvers to draw Ardena out of herself. But 
when Miss Miller finally came across the room to 
her and put her arm about her and Mr. Jackson 
shook hands warmly with her and made some con- 
ventional but kindly joke Ardena began to respond 
with her usual quickness of wit. 

Out in the dining room there were a half-dozen 
larger pink and white girls who served the daintiest 
of pink and white cakes and ice cream. The room 
was filled with bowls of pink and white roses and 
the room was full of their fragrance. Again Ar- 
dena felt shy and awkward. But then, she noted 
as she looked about, so did most of her classmates 
look shy and embarrassed. Through the doorway 
she caught a glimpse of Miss Miller. And Miss 
Miller was just as kind and thoughtful and natural 
as she always was. As usual, too, she was par- 
ticularly kind to the attentive Mr. Jackson at her 


184 


DENA 


side. Ardena decided to try the same tactics and 
began to be particularly gracious and attentive to 
Henry Loring, a big and awkward boy from the 
country, who was sitting beside her. Then Ardena 
began, for the first time during the evening, to have 
a really good time. When Henry forgot his awk- 
wardness he became interesting and amusing com- 
pany. 

During the evening there was music and readings 
by way of entertainment. But the formality of the 
occasion did not wear off and Ardena was really re- 
lieved when they had safely made their farewells 
and were homeward bound. It was a bright, warm 
moonlight night and the three wandered slowly on 
toward Ardena’s home. 

“ Did you know that Miss Miller wasn’t expect- 
ing to return next fall? ” asked Annabel. 

“ I had surmised it,” laughed Adelbert. 

Ardena was merely gasping with astonishment. 

“ And Mr. Jackson isn’t either, of course,” further 
communicated Annabel. 

Ardena wasn’t paying much attention to the latter 
remark. 

“I’m not knocked off my feet at the news,” 
Adelbert answered lightly. 

" Miss Miller says that she intends staying at 


LETA ENTERTAINS 


185 

home for awhile. She needs the rest and her par- 
ents need her. And Mr. Jackson is going east for 
further study,” continued Annabel. 

Adelbert laughed outright. “ That will do to 
tell,” he replied. “ But for my part I just put two 
and two together.” 

“ Well,” deliberated Annabel, “ I suppose that I 
really ought not to be very much surprised. But, 
somehow, I always thought of them as merely good 
friends. How we will miss dear, sweet Miss Mil- 
ler ! I can’t bear to think of next year without her.” 

“ We fellows are going to miss Mr. Jackson, too. 
He’s a mighty likable fellow when you come to know 
him and I’ve a lot of admiration for him. The 
longer we know him, the better we like him. We 
fellows are planning some sort of outdoor stunt as a 
send-off to him. By the way, this affair was in the 
nature of a farewell to Miss Miller, although the 
Lindseys didn’t put it in that way because she wants 
her future plans kept quiet until after she has left 
town.” 

Ardena was not saying a word. She was too 
amazed at the news to be able to gather her thoughts 
together. She could just manage to say good-by 
and mention something about having spent a pleas- 
ant evening. She ran up the steps that led to the 


DENA 


1 86 

front door. There was a light inside and her father 
was reading by the light. 

Ardena sat down on the bumpy carpet lounge, not 
even being mindful not to crumple the stiff sash of 
this very new dress. 

“ Did you have a nice time ? ” questioned her 
father, glancing up at her over his big spectacles. 

Ardena sank her bushy head into her hands. 
“ Oh, oh, oh,” she wailed, “ I think that I have the 
very worst luck that anybody ever, ever had ! First 
mother left us. And then grandmother left us. 
Now Uncle Logan and Aunt Lib are going to sell 
the farm and move out to Dakota. And — and now 
the very last thing of all — Miss Miller’s going away 
— and not coming back. Oh, oh, oh,” she sobbed, 
“ I feel a-bandoned — and — and I don’t know 
what I’ll do ! If — if Mrs. Shute goes — goes back 
on us — now — we’re just done for ! ” 

A very tearful Ardena mounted the steep flight of 
narrow stairs that night to her bedroom. When 
she got up in her room she sat down by the window 
in the moonlight and wept again. The new dress 
and the new handkerchief were quite crumpled. 
The stiff sash was quite wilted. The new shoes hurt 
her feet and she pulled them impatiently off. Ar- 
dena looked off out the window. An automobile 


LETA ENTERTAINS 


187 


was coming down the street at a slow glide. It was 
Doc Stubbs’s new automobile, too. And sitting in 
the automobile with Doc Stubbs was — yes, she 
could see them very plainly now — Mrs. Shute. 
With a great big gulp Ardena wept afresh. 


CHAPTER XII 

A WELCOME STEPMOTHER 

The school year was over. William T. brought 
home his books piled on top of the slate that was 
bound with frayed red felt and Alonzo brought 
home his piled on top of his geography and Ardena 
brought home hers in a stack under each arm. Wil- 
liam T. took off his shoes and stockings and donned 
overalls and was ready for a long summer of play 
with Budge Cracker of across the street. Alonzo 
reluctantly departed for the garden with the hoe over 
his shoulder, and Ardena put on her big calico apron 
and began on the stacked up dishes, an accumulation 
left from breakfast and lunch. 

That evening Mr. Marsh, in his customarily quiet 
and reticent manner, took his place at the head of 
the table. But it seemed to Ardena that he was 
even a little more silent and reserved than was his 
custom. 

“ Are we going to have some repairs done on the 
1 88 


A WELCOME STEPMOTHER 189 

house this summer and the yard fixed up, father ? ” 
she inquired, as she poured the water. 

“ I’ll commence soon now,” he answered quietly. 

“ Doc Stubbs is having lots of work done on his 
house, isn’t he ? It will be one of the finest looking 
places on Main Street when it is finished.” 

“ I think it will be a very attractive place. I 
haven’t seen the doctor lately to talk with him about 
it.” 

The four ate in silence for awhile. Then Ardena 
ventured again, “ Uncle Logan’s definitely decided 
to take that land out in Dakota, hasn’t he ? I don’t 
want grandmother’s farm sold. I don’t want them 
to move away.” 

“ But Logan thinks that he can do better up there. 
After the mortgage on the farm is paid off and you 
children get your mother’s share there won’t be a 
great deal left to buy Iowa farmland with. But he 
can go up to that new country and get more land 
for a small amount invested. Your money must ed- 
ucate you children and give you a start in life. 
Yes, William T.,” to the small boy sliding down 
from his chair, “ you are excused. Only I do wish 
that you would take the time to eat your supper prop- 
erly. You will have all summer to play in.” 

Long hot days of housework commenced again 


190 


DENA 


for Ardena. Aunt Lib and Uncle Logan were 
rushed to death with the farm work, Mrs. Shute 
seemed busy and preoccupied with her own affairs, 
Doc Stubbs was interested in the re-modelling of his 
house and Mr. Marsh was extra busy at the printing 
office. With Alonzo helping the most of the day at 
the office and William T. spending the most of the 
day over at Budge Cracker’s, Ardena was left almost 
entirely alone and she found that she had long, long 
hours for thinking over a number of very puzzling 
things. 

One evening the three children were sitting out on 
the back doorstep. It was a warm August evening 
and they were glad to rest awhile out in the cool 
breeze before going in the house to bed. 

“ It’s too dreadfully hot to dress up,” Ardena 
said, as she brushed the damp hair back from her 
forehead with a wadded handkerchief. “ Ironing 
and jelly-making make a pretty hard day’s work, I 
think.” 

“ Yes, I think so too,” sympathetically assented 
William T. 

But Ardena was not listening to William T. and 
Alonzo was busy trying to catch an elusive firefly. 

“ Seems as if we were sort of left all to our- 


A WELCOME STEPMOTHER 191 

selves,” she said, finally giving utterance to the 
thoughts running through her mind. 

Alonzo sat down on the doorstep. “ You bet it 
does, Ardena. We’re left alone the most of the 
time. When Aunt Lib and Uncle Logan go away 
next spring we’ll be left all by ourselves.” 

An automobile came whirring past and drew up 
at Mrs. Shute’s house. 

They didn’t say a word for a long time. Then 
Ardena remarked, “ I’m not going to be fooled again 
as I was with Miss Miller. Mrs. Shute will leave 
us next.” 

“ And Doc isn’t half as nice as father is,” was the 
statement that came from Alonzo. Ardena was 
rather surprised that Alonzo had arrived unaided at 
exactly her own conclusions in the matter. “ He’s 
building a fine house down there on Main Street. 
But I’ll take dad any day.” 

“ Doc Stubbs never takes me riding any more,” 
William T. put in between big yawns. 

Very soon the automobile whirred back past the 
house. There was only one occupant of the car. 

“ Wish dad would go and tell Mrs. Shute she had 
to come and live with us,” said Alonzo. “ Let’s 
ask him to.” 


ig2 


DENA 


Just then at that identical moment who should 
come around the corner of the house but Mrs. Shute. 
“ Eve been looking for you children,” she said, as 
she sat down on the step beside them. She put her 
arm around William T. and drew him close up to 
her. Then Alonzo, slowly but surely, began edging 
his way closer up to Mrs. Shute as she sat on the 
step. “ Your father’s been gone so many nights 
now and you children are left so much alone.” 

“ We — we been wishing,” began William T. 
(Ardena tried to stop him with a nudge but the 
nudge proved to be totally ineffectual) “ that — that 
you would come and live at our house and you would 
be our mother. Budge has got a mother. I’d like 
a mother, too. Mothers are nice.” 

Alonzo and Ardena were speechless with amaze- 
ment and chagrin. The tree-toads and the katydids 
seemed to shriek out in the absolute quiet of the 
darkness about them. Ardena was about to say 
something — anything. But Mrs. Shute was speak- 
ing. 

“ William T., dear,” she was saying with an em- 
barrassed little laugh, “I — I don’t think I’m half 
good enough to be a mother to such a fine boy as 
you are — and such nice children as Alonzo and Ar- 
dena. I — I think — probably — your father had 


A WELCOME STEPMOTHER 193 

better look a little longer.” Then, after another lit- 
tle embarrassed laugh while her arm on William T.’s 
shoulder tightened its hold, “ You see, William T., 
your invitation comes rather suddenly. I think 
that I’ll have to think it over.” 

William T. jumped up and threw his arms about 
her neck. “ I’m going to ask my father to ask you, 
too,” he generously offered. 

They talked of other things then — the moon and 
the stars, and the why and the how of such wonder- 
ful big mysterious things. William T. fell sound 
asleep with his head in Mrs. Shute’s lap and had to 
be helped upstairs to bed. And so it was Ardena 
who stayed up and waited for her father. 

He seemed very tired when he came in. He took 
off his coat and shoes and put on his old slippers and 
picked up a magazine for a minute. With a little 
sinking of the heart Ardena noticed for the first time 
how old and worn he seemed to be growing. 

“ Father,” she finally asked timidly, but neverthe- 
less bluntly and resolutely, “ why — why can’t Mrs. 
Shute come and live with us and be our mother? 
We all love her so much.” 

Mr. Marsh looked up at his daughter with a very 
odd smile. “ Because, my dear,” he said, “ of pro- 
fessional ethics. Doc is first on the ground. Then, 


194 


DENA 


also,” a little more soberly, “ Doc has much more to 
offer Mrs. Shute than I have in the way of money 
and position. Besides,” again reading the maga- 
zine, “ to use a slang expression, I should scarcely 
call it honorable to butt in. I have the greatest of 
admiration and respect for Mrs. Shute. And — she 
has been infinitely kind to my children. But so is 
Doc a lifelong and much-tried and found-true friend. 
I am wondering, Ardena,” again glancing up, “ how 
it would do for me to hunt around for a housekeeper 
for next year. I am getting ahead now in the busi- 
ness. Then, also, you are shouldering too big a load 
for a young girl in the high school. And after Lib 
goes you will be left so much alone. The only peo- 
ple I can think of I could get here in Arcadia are 
Old Aunt Rachel and Black Lottie. Old Aunt 
Rachel is old and crippled up with rheumatism, but 
she is a kindly old soul and would help out if she 
came here to live with us. If I took Black Lottie, I 
would have her come in by the day. She is big and 
strong and an excellent cook and housekeeper. I 
have talked the plan over with Aunt Lib and Mrs. 
Shute. Which — ” 

But Ardena’s eyes were filled full of big tears. 
So Mr. Marsh changed the subject and they soon 
went to bed. 


A WELCOME STEPMOTHER 195 

By the next morning William T. had forgotten 
his promise of the evening before and departed im- 
mediately after breakfast for the front yard and a 
band of neighborhood children. 

So all day long Ardena worked about the house. 
And she thought of rheumatic, doddering Old Aunt 
Rachel and she thought of big, noisy Black Lottie. 
The next evening the three children sat out on the 
back doorstep again. And Ardena, full to over- 
flowing with this one absorbing worry, communi- 
cated the news to Alonzo and William T. 

“ Old Aunt Rachel ! Black Lottie ! ” Alonzo’s 
tone was bursting with disgust. “ I should think — 
oh, well, I guess after all poor father is doing the 
best for us he can ! ” 

“ But why isn’t Mrs. Shute going to come and be 
our mother? ” questioned William T. 

“ Because,” Ardena answered him briefly. 

“ Because why not ? ” still persisted William T. 

“ Well, just because,” Ardena emphasized. 

“ Then,” said William T., snuggling up close to 
his sister, “ Lonzy and I’ll be Dena’s.” 

Ardena hugged him close up to her. “ If we can’t 
have Mrs. Shute, then we’ll stay by ourselves, won’t 
we, Dena’s Willy T. ? ” 

And who should come around the corner of the 


DENA 


196 

house again at this very identical moment but Mrs. 
Shute ! And William T. hugged her close again and 
Alonzo crept slowly up to her and Ardena on the 
step below leaned her head on her knee. They did 
not talk much; they drew close together and were 
busy with their own thoughts. 

And pretty soon a familiar step sounded in the 
house and some one was coming through the kitchen 
and was standing by the screen door. Then Mr. 
Marsh came out and sat down on the steps beside 
them. 

“ Father !” exclaimed William T. (Ardena was 
not trying to restrain him at all), “I been meaning 
to tell you. Mrs. Shute said last night that — that 
— that she’d come and be our mother only — only 
we never asked her to come. We don’t want Old 
Aunt Rachel. We don’t want Black Lottie. We 
like Mrs. Shute a hundred million times the best.” 

“ But — well — Mr. Marsh laughed an embar- 
rassed little laugh and drew his small son up to him, 
“ how — how about that new house down on Main 
Street? ” 

“ The doctor’s nephew died a few weeks ago out 
in California and left a wife with an old mother and 
two little girls to support. She appealed to the doc- 
tor for a little help until she could get started in 


A WELCOME STEPMOTHER 197 

something. When he told me about it, I told him 
just exactly what I thought it was his duty to do. 
Pve insisted that he send straight out to California 
for that family and that he bring them here and take 
care of them all and I told him he’d be more than 
repaid in the happiness he’d get out of it.” Mrs. 
Shute was quite dignified and decided in her manner. 
“ But — but how about Doc? ” 

Then Ardena laughingly put in, “ But ‘ why don’t 
you speak for yourself, John ’? ” 

And so it came about that Mrs. Shute’s little cot- 
tage was enlarged and remodelled and, you may be 
sure, aired and cleaned and scrubbed to a perfectly 
satisfactory state. Out of due respect for the late 
Ebenezer the wedding was put off until Thanksgiv- 
ing. But, oh, what a Thanksgiving day it was! for 
Mrs. Shute and Mr. Marsh and all three of the 
Marsh children and Aunt Lib and Uncle Logan and 
all of their four children and Doc Stubbs and his 
nephew’s niece and her mother and her two children 
and the Reverend Mr. Bell and Mrs. Bell and Carl- 
ton Bell all came to this Thanksgiving feast. 

“ It’s the thankfullest Thanksgiving of them all,” 
was William T.’s summary of the day. 


THE END 





f I 









‘ 













- 

« 





























































































































I 













r 


LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 




000E4aTflE10 

i 


